Because I’ve just got to come up with a pointless weird “code name” for everything these days, I guess.
Still, can you believe it? Or rather, can I believe it? In only 40 hours, I will be on a plane en route to Washington-Dulles Airport, and from there, to my new intermittent home for the next 4 years (and continuously for the next 4 months): American University. Well, here’s my actual itinerary anyway (Skoker, if you’re reading this, I want your juicy trademark airplane/flight details!):
I’ll be on Virgin America Flight 78, which departs SFO at 9:25 AM and arrives at IAD at 5:35 PM, or a 5 hour direct flight +3 hours timezone difference. Not bad, eh? Guess it’s a good thing my parents booked that when it was cheap, about 4 months ago (even if I wasn’t psychologically ready for that thought at the time).
Now because I’m a public transit addict, I ain’t taking no shuttle or taxi service! (Not unless the flight has a multi-hour delay, knock on wood.) Of course I’m getting there with the Washington Metro! I’ve even got my SmarTrip Card already with $25 of value on it. 
From Dulles, I’ll be taking Metrobus 5A to the Rosslyn Metrorail station. From there, I just have to take the Orange or Blue line to Metro Center station and transfer to the Red Line up to the Tenleytown-AU station. An AU shuttle bus connects between there to my dorm where I will then check in. At the earliest, it will be about 7:30 PM at this point, so yeah, Saturday will essentially be a full day spent traveling.
So then what? Well, Sunday’s just wide open, so I guess that will be a day for me to get settled. The interesting part is that our meal plans don’t kick in until dinner on Sunday evening, so I’m pretty much going to have to be “eating out,” so to speak, over the weekend. We’ll see how that goes.
The real fun starts on Monday next week, which is “Welcome Week” at AU. Actually, it’ll be only freshmen on campus until Wednesday, when returning students are permitted to move back in. On Monday morning, I actually have to do a “make-up” New Student Orientation, since I wasn’t able to fly out to DC anytime this past summer to take part in that. That’ll probably take up most of the morning, and may include getting forms completed and stuff like that.
Beginning Monday afternoon, and continuing through to Thursday, is the actual Welcome Week program that I’m involved with, the Freshman Service Experience. The details I’ve gotten on this are still a bit scarce, but my understanding is that the program puts us in a number of community service organizations within Washington, DC and gives us a chance to get involved with those groups, which sounds intriguing. Unfortunately, they have yet to post their list of sites for this year, though they do have info about the evening programming.
Friday is the day that gets a little more interesting. For our summer reading, we’ve been assigned a book called True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society (Amazon link), which has been a very interesting book. We’re actually going to get to meet the author, Farhad Manjoo, on Friday. In the morning, Honors students (which includes me) will get to have breakfast with him, and in the afternoon, they’re doing a “Writer as Witness colloquium” where he will be speaking. In between those two things will be Opening Convocation, and I don’t really know what that will involve. We’ll get convocated, I guess. *shrug*
Then the weekend (August 22-23) is also fairly open, although the Honors program has a kick-off/barbecue on Saturday afternoon. And then on Monday, August 24th, classes begin. So, by popular demand (and I mean to the point where everyone asks me), here’s my schedule of classes for fall semester:
- World Politics — Mondays and Thursdays, 12:45-2:00 PM — 3.00 credits
- Western Legal Tradition — Tuesdays and Fridays, 11:20 AM-12:35 PM — 3.00 credits
- Honors 101 — Wednesdays, 3:35-5:20 PM — 0 credits
- Honors English I — Tuesdays and Fridays, 3:35-4:50 PM — 3.00 credits
- American Society — Mondays and Thursdays, 11:20 AM-12:35 PM — 3.00 credits
- Critical Approach to Cinema — Tuesdays and Fridays, 8:30-9:45 AM AND Thursdays, 8:10-10:40 PM — 3.00 credits
So now here come the barrage of questions which I’m going to try to predict and answer. (You get kinda good at this when it’s the one topic that every person in the world asks you for months on end.)
- That adds up to 15 credits! That’s quite a load. I’ll take your word for it. On average, this is six classes each twice a week. I’m used to six or seven classes five times a week, not to mention that just about all of my old commitments will have been left behind on another coast, giving me a clean slate. But we’ll see what will come out of that…
- Wow, those classes seem to be kind of Political Sciencey to me… Well, strike “Political Sciencey” and replace it with “General Edsy,” both words that I made up. I don’t have a declared major, and so these classes are all to fulfill AU’s complicated General Ed requirements, which I’ve already described. My AP scores have already placed me out of the math and history requirements, so here’s what’s left. Next semester will probably be the same story; guess I’ll just save the interesting stuff for sophomore year and beyond.
- What’s with the Honors 101 class? And zero credits? As a student in the Honors program, I get to participate in the fun stuff that that program puts on throughout the year. Like what? Oh, I could give you some examples, but I’m too lazy to dig through my e-mails from AU to give them to you. I’ll end up blogging a bit more about what that class is like in the near future. What I do know is the class is zero credits, but it also claims to have little outside work, no exams or quizzes, no textbooks, etc.
The honors program DOES insist that I have a certain number of Honors-level classes and credits each semester. In addition to Honors English I, my Western Legal Tradition class is also in an Honors section. - Man, that Critical Approach to Cinema class is certainly a time hog. Yep. And I don’t even like watching most movies, either. Well, you win some, you lose some.
- What, no music class? Guess not. I’ll probably see if there’s any way to keep up with music through an extracurricular group or something like that. Probably once I figure out if it’s possible to rent/borrow a cello from the school or a nearby store, or if that goal is fruitless and we’ll have to shell out the big bucks to ship my own cello back and forth.
There is one other exciting thing coming up. On Sunday, I saw in the Today@AU e-mail (essentially a periodic e-mail that comes out with announcements for students and faculty), that the AU Student Government was seeking applicants for the position of Parliamentarian. Wow, could my timing be any better? I’ve only been Parliamentarian of my local PTA Council for the past two years, and have been working with Robert’s Rules of Order the past three, and I’ve been planning to figure out a way that I could get involved with AUSG for a few months now. So I got my application typed up right then and there and submitted it.
Here’s the cool part: They guy who was receiving the applications e-mailed me back the next morning. While I won’t hear whether or not I get the position until next week, he said that there’s actually a local unit of the National Association of Parliamentarians that meets just down the street from AU. He’s also a member, and if I’d like to join (and I’ve been meaning to for a few months now), he could administer the examination that I need to pass in order to join! (It’s a 100 question multiple-choice exam, and I only need a 70% to pass.) So I’m going to get to take that exam on Tuesday the 25th! I can’t wait…
So that’s what my first week or two over on the East Coast will look like. Tomorrow I get to pack, clean room, and a bunch of other hectic last-minute stuff for my last day in the Bay Area until December. And tomorrow will come the next half of this blog post: the part where I get to share the incredibly stressful interesting experience I’ve had getting myself ready to mobilize. So stay tuned…
