I've been on campus almost three days and I haven't paid for a meal. And I won't until next Saturday.
All the dorms are in the middle of REX, residence exploration, and are bribing the freshman with free food and parties. Since Friday I've been to jello wrestling and grilling (one event), a luau, three difference dances, brunch, and a long walk to Bexley. And campus was shut down on Sunday due to hurricane Irene, so that's only two day's of REX events.
Once REX is over, rush week starts. The fraternities spend thousands of dollars trying to entice other students to pledging to them. Although I don't have much interest in joining a frat at the moment, I sure will during Rush Week! Free steak dinners? Yes please. One of the sophomores in MacGregor who pledged last year said that his frat is spending about $20,000 in just that week alone.
Speaking of MacGregor, although I'm running around, meeting everyone, partaking in free food, visiting the different residences, and plan to see some frats next week, I'm happy living here. Everyone is very friendly and social, and there is always something going on in my entry (D). Tuesday morning I woke up a bit earlier than everyone else and went into the common area. The TV was off! Which doesn't sound that unusual except that it had been on every other time I was in there since Friday.
On Tuesday we had a guest lecture by a professor here. Dr. Zuber spoke about the moon, it's history, and how learning about it's gravitational fields will help us further understand how both the moon and earth were formed. Then she went on to explain that NASA was sending one of her designs, the GRAIL, into space to orbit the moon and take in data about it's gravitational field. That's really, really cool. And some kids fell asleep during the lecture!
We've also had two workout sessions with the lightweight rowing squad. They're mostly just to meet everyone but we did some good ab work and lifting both days. About six of the nine lightweights are extremely strong rowers and don't really look like they should be under 160 lbs, but they have virtually no fat and somehow they make the weight by race day. It was actually somewhat intimidating because here they are doing one handed pullups or showing us how to they do the ab workout to make it more difficult while I can only do two or three regular pullups and I'm having enough trouble with the core exercise as is, thank you very much. Regardless, we're going to have an excellent season. Even if I'm in the worst boat I'll still really enjoy it - I'd rather be the slowest rower in the slowest boat then not on the team.
The only thing disappointing thing is the lack of a strong Boston accent on campus. My mom and I stopped at a diner for lunch on Friday and the waitress talked to us about the "weathah" and the "storum." There's none of that on campus - the students are too mixed.
Coming from a small highschool, there are a TON of people here. I thought I'd met a lot of freshman in my first few days here, until we all got together for lunch. I looked around and didn't recognize a single person. That never happens at Canterbury. First time for everything!
