1st Week

One week of classes done. So what’s the difference from five years ago?

Loooong. Two hour classes! Two of them each day with a half hour break in between. Also, about half way through the class we get a little break. Getting done at 12:30 is pretty great. Rarely will I get to go home after that, but it’s nice having them out of the way.

Discussion, ‘People talk in class?’ Not so much chatter in the engineering classes. Sure people would ask and answer questions, but never any discussion.

Laptops. I had a laptop for my senior year and a handful of classrooms had wireless. Now? Laptops are required. Desks have power and ethernet (along with spotty wireless). Every prof spends a good deal of the first class pleading with us to pay attention and not surf/IM.

Lockers! Ok, so not a first week thing, I got it the first day. Still, how cool am I? I have a locker again. I’ve already planned ahead and tossed a hoodie in. So far, its best use has been tossing my bag in the locker to walk around campus or go to lunch. I also have an office on the 4th floor. Haven’t decided what I’m going to store up there.

Campus is a different place now that all the students are here. The first two weeks on campus were great, we had run of the place. Now there are slow moving pedestrians, long lines for food, less available seating. It’s not so bad, but we were spoiled the first two weeks.

Saturday morning I decided to check out where the path behind my apartment led. I had done some research on Google Maps but there was no way to know about the paths until I actually took to them. I wound up walking from my apartment all the way downtown. I didn’t go the route I wanted, I somehow missed a turn (Google’s paths seem to often be guesses). According to Google, I walked 3.3 miles to get downtown. I did that in a little under an hour. The way back I was able to find the path I wanted and that route is about 3.1 miles. So yesterday I walked almost 6.5 miles in about 2 hours, for no particular reason.

Actually, it will come in handy. For the few football games that I won’t be driving to tailgate and that don’t end after dark (the paths are not lit, at all), I wanted to know if I could walk. That should work for at least two games. Also, it’s such a peaceful trail, if I get the urge to start to run someday, it would be perfect. I might have seen 10 total people during my time on the path.

Longing for last week, before all the students were here, I think I have found my solution: spend as much time as I can on campus weekend mornings. The place is barren before noon. I arrived on campus at noon and I had to double check that my phone had the right time, there was no one to be seen. For future mornings, I will save the walk and just drive in. Football weekends may make me forget about this, but I hope to take advantage in the spring.

Week 2 ends with some football.