I'm in Grand Forks

So, I’m writing from college at UND right now. I moved into my dorm on Friday, which, “officially,” was the earliest that students could begin occupying their rooms. I say officially because anybody who was willing to pay a fee had the opportunity to move in either on Wednesday or Thursday.

Anyway, I’m currently getting myself situated into my room on the top floor of Fulton Hall. My room faces north, meaning that it will more than likely get cold during the winter. The view isn’t exactly what I would have wanted, but, I suppose you could say it isn’t that bad either. I look into a good sized courtyard formed by the Fulton, Johnston, and Smith residence halls. I can see a tree – I believe it’s an oak, although it could be a cottonwood since those things grow like dandelions around here – as well as some sidewalks and a sand volleyball court.

Classes didn’t start until 4 PM this afternoon, but, even then, that didn’t concern me since I don’t have any classes after 4 on Mondays. However, I will have 3 classes tomorrow: Honors 101 (“inquiry into the humanities”), German II, and Calc II. Although I’ll have to walk all over campus to get to these classes, I do have an hour break between all of them that I can utilize to eat lunch or something.

Speaking of classes, I went over to the bookstore yesterday and on Saturday to pick up all the books I’ll need. The bill ended up being a little less than $400, largely due to the fact that my chemistry book cost $107 (for a used version, no less) and that I needed to get 7 books/novels for my honors class.

And these 7 books are, in alphabetical order:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman
Maus by Art Spiegelman
The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
What Does it all Mean? by Thomas Nagel

I’m pretty happy to see two books on that list that I am familiar with. If we don’t read The Great Gatsby first, I’m likely to grab my papers and journal, which I have saved, along with pretty much everything else from high school I found important (including the “Simone ist am klügsten” sign from the former German room), from Wanniger’s pre-AP English class the next time I go home. I should probably also fetch my thoroughly highlighted and marked-up The Great Gatbsy from said class as well.

I know that Niemi in last year’s AP English Language class also exposed us to some exerpts from The Things They Carried, so, when I get around to it, I’ll probably look through my essay and multiple choice folders that I coincidently decided to bring with me to college. If I don’t find anything in those, I could always dig through some boxes at home to find the folder with all the handouts from the class.

That’s all for now; I’ll keep everybody updated whenever I get around to doing so.