True Life: I'm Dating an Alien

Now that I have your attention, I'd like to take a minute to apologize for my lack of posts as of late. Life has been wonderful and busy and I just haven't taken the time to write anything down. I spent my winter break at home for three weeks, sleeping on my parents' couch, spending time with amazing people, going ice skating, seeing Star Wars (three times), and then returned to campus last week. The last few days have been consumed by RA training and students returning to campus. It's been chaotic, but definitely productive.

Not so awful ID picture

Aside from the PhilaU chaos, yesterday I started my first ever grad class at Temple University. Before that I had never even set foot on Temple's campus (unless you count the times I went to the Pearl Theater or the Liacouras Center). Despite me being directionally impaired, I made it to the train station in East Falls and then to the building where my class was held, with minor GPS usage. After speaking to a few kind students on campus, I was able to find out where to get my ID and actually took a decent picture. (Thank goodness I was actually prepared, unlike when I took my picture for Arcadia and PhilaU...) After doing all of this, I still had a half hour to kill before class. I made my way to my classroom, sat down, and waited for everyone else to arrive.

Grad school notebook

Overall, class was a success. It was basically a syllabus day (which I thought ceased to exist after undergrad), but with a few notes. I quickly learned that I will probably be the only person in my classes taking notes the traditional way: with pen and paper. This might change over the course of the semester, but in an effort to avoid pissing off everyone in class with my laptop who likes to sing everyone the song of its people, I'm going to stick with paper for as long as possible.

After class was over, I called a friend to keep me company on the phone until my train came an hour later. (This would usually be the part where I tell you all about how wonderful this person is and that I've been talking to him for a while and that he is such a gentleman and I really enjoy his company and blah blah blah, but he and I have an image to keep up so I will spare you the details (for now...). All you need to know is that he makes me happy and I have these weird things called "feelings" for him. Gross, I know. Oh, and he is an alien. That's another important thing.)  My wonderful parents offered to drive about a half hour to the East Falls Station to pick me up and drop me off on campus so I didn't have to walk at night in the cold. I told my mom it was because they missed me, but she insisted that she just wanted to keep me safe. (She just doesn't want to admit that she misses having me around the house...)
Thursday is my next grad class, which is actually going to be challenging because it is an accelerated course. Fingers crossed it goes as well as my class on Monday.

After a long and somewhat stressful few days of RA training filled with printer issues, staff conflicts, and meetings, I get to spend time with my fellow RCs by going to dinner in Manayunk followed by a night of catching up with one of my absolute best friends who is in town from Portland. To say I am excited for this evening is an understatement.

Here's to a wonderful evening and productive week!