paul@viscerallogic.com
| October >>> |
I have been doing a lot of wandering around on campus, finding out where things are and familiarizing myself with the place. The University of Michigan is very hilly, unlike Chicago, so I am getting a lot more exercise than I am used to. I have only today recovered from the soreness I got my first day of wandering around. And speaking of wandering around, this place is huge. It is easy to wander around in large circles for long times, not knowing quite where you are, even with the aid of various maps. At least now that I have a computer in my room I don't have to walk ten minutes to get to the nearest computing center.
Here is a picture of the students from Fall Orientation. I'm hidden behind the guy in the "Boston" shirt, and Ali, another guy in my suite, is in the blue shirt with red stripes toward the middle.
It has been drizzling here for basically the past 24 hours, and it is a lot cooler than it was when I arrived. Lately the high's have been below 80 and with the overcast skies and rain and breezes it has felt even colder.
Things are gradually coming together here to make my room more like home. My computer arrived a week ago, but the printer just came a couple days ago, along with a RAM chip I ordered which will stop using my computer from being a painful process. I'm still waiting for my iMic to come, though, which will allow me to plug in my bass guitar and play through the subwoofer connected to the computer. On the food end, I have to have lunch here (or at any rate, not at the cafeteria) several times a week, so I bought some salami lunchmeat. Unfortunately, we don't have any knives here, so I can't apply mayonnaise or other condiments. Oh, well.
After the first full week of classes, things still aren't too busy here. So far, only my Engineering 100 class has assigned any papers, although the leaders of my section seem to really enjoy assigning work. However, our project, finding a better fuel system for a fleet of diesel-powered buses, should be fun. And all the technical writing is good for me.
I finally got some real french toast this morning. The stuff the cafeteria labels "French Toast" tastes like hush-puppies. What I consider french toast the cafeteria calls "Texas French Toast." This doesn't even need to be soaked in syrup to be edible.
I found a drug store on central campus on Saturday, which was good, because I really needed to get some cough medecine. Getting to the store was not good, though. After waiting about 20 minutes a bus came by, but it was already full and didn't let anybody on. After this, some people managed to hitch rides with people with cars going to central or south campus. 15 minutes later another bus came by that was almost as full, but it let people on, so it ended up even fuller (I think people were sitting on each other). Fortunately there was a second bus right behind it, which I was able to get on (standing room only, but plenty of that compared to the other buses). I guess this was because of the game, with over 111,000 people in attendance at the stadium.
When I wasn't working on that paper I was mostly working on my Aerospace 245 homework, which while not very difficult is extremely time-consuming and tedious. However, I have had a few hours of free time, in which I found and downloaded a free 3D modeller/animator called Blender, which used to be commercial, until its developer sold it to the open-source community for $100,000. So now I can use it for free.
I also finally went to the pool today. Finding myself with really nothing to do, I headed over to the North Campus Recreational Building. They have a 25-yard pool, but no diving boards, so I guess I'll have to take a bus down to central campus if I want to do any diving. Apparently they rent lockers for $1/day, or by the semester, but they also let people take their bags into the pool area for no charge, which is nice. I am extremely out of shape right now. I swam less than 400 yards, and I am so tired I can barely even type. I think I will go to sleep now.