The Smorgasbord of Douglas Bell

Too Much Analysis of an Overextended College Student Dwelling in a Capitol City

Posts Tagged ‘college’

The First Quarter Report

Wow, it’s been a little while since a good ol blog post on here, eh? I just finished my fourth week of classes, meaning that the semester is already 25% complete. I guess time flies over here. Which means, as usual, there’s not enough of it. Hence my lack of posting on here, as could be expected. So I guess the purpose of this post is to catch up and recap on the past four weeks of my college life. Not that any of this is new, especially if you’ve been following me on Twitter. But for the sake of blog continuity, here goes anyway.
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Well, it’s been about eleven days now here at AU. I’m not entirely settled yet (still working on it), but I am now pretty much used to the timezone, actually getting used to the warmer temperatures (just wait until winter comes around), and some of the habits of living here. The craziness of Welcome Week is over and classes have started, and I’ll hopefully get used to that soon. Nevertheless, here are some observations that I’ve made after my first week and a half here.
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Operation Uproot, Part II

Editor’s Note: This post was written while I was on the airplane about 8 hours ago. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t post it then. ;) I am now at AU, posting this from my dorm.

Well, I guess that I was going to post this yesterday, but yesterday turned out to be quite a hectic day that it didn’t work out. Instead, I’m actually writing this blog post on the plane. Guess it works out, since I do need something to occupy myself for the next few hours, right? ;)

Fortunately, yesterday didn’t turn out to be a big all-packing all-day day. Maybe that would have reduced the evening stress a bit, but it did provide the opportunity for a nice chance to go around San Mateo one last time. My parents and I took our harp-flute-cello trio to the park one last time, and despite it being a little bit windy, we actually had a bit of an audience this time.

Unfortunately, yesterday wound up being the big room-cleaning that I had procrastinated on during the summer. In some ways, that might have been a good thing, because when you’re about to move away for four months, the pack-rat tendency is significantly mitigated. Essentially for all of the stuff that I’ve accumulated and has been sitting around making a mess in my room all these years for no reason, it can either come with me, get kept somewhere at home, passed along to my family, or get recycled. Because the first two have significant space limitations, you can bet that I doubled the size of our paper recycling pile yesterday. So now the room is nice and clean which is good since my brother has it to himself now. The downside: DUST! So yesterday and today I’ve got a bit of hay fever, though the plane ride has been helping to improve it a bit.
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The Obstacles of Moving House

Today it is now T minus twenty-five days before I’m headed off to the East Coast for four months. Which, despite this week’s intentional distraction focus on OSCON in San Jose, is starting to become kind of a prevalent thought.

I mean, when you’re planning to live away from home for four straight months, and then (after a three week break) another four straight months, what exactly do you take with you and what do you leave behind? I’ve never been away from home for more than ten days at a time before, so this is kind of mind-numbing to think about. I was kind of hoping to get a bit of advice from the friendly people-who-put-stuff-in-the-mail at AU, but the most I’ve been getting from them recently is the opportunity to buy stuff.

Well, the obvious thing to bring is at least a week’s worth of clothes, since I’ll get to do my own laundry while I’m down there. (Whoopee.) Throw in bedding (something I wouldn’t have to worry about at a hotel), toiletries, and whatever to get through at least my first night over in Washington, and that’s quite a bit there. Not to mention that that’ll fill a suitcase pretty quickly. And I do have the option (when winter comes around, let’s call it the obligation) to do some shopping down there for other essentials I guess. Or, if I need to send anything over there that I can’t stuff into a suitcase when I take off on August 15th, I also have the option of shipping stuff over to Washington ahead of time. I guess I just don’t know what.

Anyone have ideas or experience in this department? What kinds of things do you or don’t you take with you for staying in a college dorm?

Two More Months

Yep, there are exactly two months left until I fly off to start the next chapter of my life in Washington, DC. It’s bewildering how this summer is moving so fast and so slow at the same time–it’s already been seventeen days since my graduation from high school. Here’s a taste at what I’ve had the fun of doing for over these past two weeks.

Only three days after I graduated, I spent Monday, June 1st on a day trip to Sacramento, where the State Conference Committee on the Budget held a public hearing on cuts affecting education; folks from the California State PTA were asking members to come and support the PTA’s positions on the budget cuts, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to work with the state leaders one last time. That trip and my testimony at the hearing earned me two seconds on television and top quote in an Education Coalition press release. Not bad.
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