I Arrived at College

Hey everybody

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. When life is the busiest and friends most want to know what's going on, I have the least time to post. Anyways, since my last post I packed for college (mostly the morning I was leaving) and flew to Burbank without hassle. All of the stores and offices were closed for the weekend, so I got close to nothing done the first few days I was here. Soon, though, I was whisked off with a bunch of other Caltech people to go on a week-long backpack in the Sierras. The trip was strenuous and the people were interesting. Our group, the most advanced of the three, covered 52 miles in six days (and 14 in one day!); it was the most I had ever hiked. As an added bonus, we did the backpack in Sequoia and King's Canyon National Park, so I got to see the enormous trees there. There's a mighty big difference between these groves and the lodgepole forests back home.

Once the five hour, harrowing shuttle bus ride back to Caltech was over, I took a shower and procrastinated. Hey, it was the weekend again, and again, nothing was open. Today, however, orientation started in earnest and the entire day was spent walking from office to office filling out different paperwork and retrieving important information. All in all it was very productive, and I feel like a real student here now. Tomorrow the entire freshman class will leave to go to an off-campus orientation retreat. From looking at the schedule, it's structured like a conference with meetings throughout the day with different speakers. Thankfully, there is free time available for going to the beach or hanging out.

Next week, I will go through Rotation Week. This time period at Caltech enables the entering freshman to experience the different cultures of the eight houses here. After eating a meal in each house throughout the week, I will rank the houses according to my preference; and be assigned to one. The whole process should be pretty fun, though I hope it becomes clear to me which house would be best - I really have no idea what their distinctives are.
P.S. Rotation Week is also the first week of class... but I hear that the professors don't really assign any homework that week.