Sunday, June 17, 2012

BBFs (Best Brown Friends)


Even after touring some of my dream schools, today has been the most exciting of the whole trip: moving into dorms. Last night, after blogging, I alternated between furiously packing and getting distracted by the festival going on right outside my window. Thankfully, I finished, and though we went shopping yesterday, everything fit. We woke up this morning, went out to breakfast, again at the Small Point Café, then packed into the car, and we were off to Brown!

Upon arriving at the campus, we got checked in and assigned our rooms. I was a little disconcerted to find that I was the only one of our six not in a “Grad Building”, instead in Olney house (usually a frat house), but after looking at the map, I felt comforted that they were really close. I’m also the only one out of our six to have a roommate, Mavi, who lives in Turkey. Her English is amazingly good for someone who’s not a native speaker, and it looks like we’re both (somewhat) neat people, so I’m sure things will go swell.

After taking a quick campus tour, we all went to the Brown Bookstore, where many a textbook were bought. My macroeconomics book, after a quick flip through, doesn’t look too hard to understand, with lots of pictures (yay!) and graphs (less yay). Though the price was almost painful, buying the book is the first step to really getting to understand and enjoy macroeconomics. Even though every time I say the words, “I’m studying macroeconomics at Brown this summer!” people get a look on their face like they’re almost pitying me, I’m too excited to finally get to class!

We walked down the street to a burger place, and then the cohort, Mrs. Kaplan, and Mr. Crosby went out to eat, our last meal with the driving chaperone. Thank you so much Mr. Crosby, please keep blogging!

We had a couple minutes before the orientation, so I went back to my dorm and got some stuff unpacked. During the actual orientation, we heard a lot on what we’ll be doing, and how to stay safe while doing it. We split up into RA groups, so I went with Ayano, a rising junior, to a grass field where we did ice breakers. They actually helped a lot in making conversation starters, and I felt myself clicking with a few other girls. When “Connection” and “I.D.” were over, we raced to the dining hall to be first in line. We weren’t. But, I got to become even closer with people from all over the world to just 20 minutes away.

The Summer@Brown staff certainly keeps us busy! After dinner, we toured the campus in more detail, finding out where our specific classes are. Then, after the tour and a couple hands of ‘spoons’ (the card game), we had an ice cream social! I don’t even know how many tubs of ice cream were scooped out to the hundreds of students, but I know that some arms are really tired right about now. A couple hours of ice cream later, we had a floor meeting, with half the girls from our floor and our RA. There, we just learned the specific rules and curfews for our dorm. Finally, all of the girls in Olney all met up, and we were told the fun activities planned for our house. Things from Tattuesday (tattoo+Tuesday), where we’ll apply temporary tattoos, to spoon assassins, which will require a lot of sneaking around are all planned exclusively (I think?) to Olney house.

I was a little bit nervous about first coming here, and finding that I was going to be alone in the dorm was nerve-wracking, but I’ve made some really good friends already, and I can’t wait to start class and meet more people.

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