My first day of classes and stuff...

So I walked all over the Diag trying to find all of my classes. It was really hot and I got nasty sweaty but not too sweaty. Then I came back and ate dinner... BBQ short ribs... yum.

When I got back from the class search, I saw that I had goten an email from a Christian group at UM that read:
Hello and welcome to U of M!

Questions you may be asking yourself as an incoming student at U of M:

What do all these acronyms mean?
Why is North Campus more east than north?
Is it humanly possible to get from Dennison to the MLB in 10 minutes?
Where can I go to find out more about God?

We can't help you with the first three, but we're all over the last one!

...and I thought, 'yes, I have been asking those questions.' In fact, I was just wondering about the Dennison thing because I have a class in MLB and then one in Dennison 10 minutes later. So when I was on my little class search, I tried it and timed it. It took me 7 minutes at a quick but not strenuous pace. I had never thought about the North Campus thing, and there are a ton of acronyms here... MLB, BMT, CCRB, GSI, LSA, SAPAC, UGLi, ONSP, and RC to name a few.

So anyway... I went to all of my classes today except for the great books discussion which is tomorrow. I must say that so far I am in love with my classes and professors... perhaps it's just the excitement flowing over into the impressions, but I really enjoyed today. I was a little worried about getting from MLB to Dennison, but that all worked out.

First, I went to great books. The professor is HD Cameron. He is quite funny and looks kinda like Colonel Sanders. Today was basically a Greek history/mythology overview. I met the girl who sat next to me... Emily I think.

Next was German. Since it was right after GB, I was one of the last ones there. The tiny room was packed by the time I got there and I had to sit at the end of a table. We sat there for a while and wondered if the prof was coming. After a while she came in... Stacy Swennes. She was very bubbley and fun. The first 3/4 of the class was 99% in German and the rest she spoke English, but I was able to keep up pretty well.

Then I ran back down the stairs to Intro Music Theory. Since, once again, I was one of the last to get there, I ended up in the very front row. The professor is Andrew W Mead. He was funny and so far the class was pretty interesting. I ran out of that class and halfway across central campus to Dennison building.

The room where my calc class is was small and the desks were close together and small. The professor's name was Jani Onninen and so I thought "Janie = woman." But then a very tall, very skinny man walked in and set his stuff on the front desk, so I was like, "hmmm, maybe not." As it turned out, Jani was pronounced "Yonni" and the prof was from Finland. He had a heavy accent but it was understandable. I met Kristen, the girl sitting next to me. There was one kid who seemed like a know-it-all, and so naturally that got on my nerves. But Jani was talking about even functions and he asked what was the typical example of an even function, and I said, "x squared" and he said, "yes, exactly." So I felt special. I like that class because it's not a lecture... we can ask questions whenever we want or stop him and ask him to go over something again.

Then when that class was over, I went to the bathroom (yes, I'm sure you wanted to know that), took some pictures around campus for your enjoyment (if I didn't send you the link to my album, post a comment with your email and I would be glad to send it), and then ran back to my dorm for lunch (they quit serving lunch at 1:30). I got some food and sat down by myself as usual. After a few minutes, this one guy came up to my table and asked if he could sit with me. I said sure and he sat. His name was Ben and he's from Washington DC. He lives in 4th Hunt in South Quad... and that's cool because he's just one floor above me and in honors. So we talked until we were done eating, and it was fun. It was the most conversation I had over a meal since I got here. He's really into Middle Eastern stuff and he's taking Arabic this semester.

That's all for now.