I have yet to become a cowgirl (though all that country music in NCCC got me a good step closer, as did that time with the chickens in Ghana), but I have moved to a farm. Leland Stanford's farm, to be specific. Yes, I've made it to Stanford for a wonderful year full of graduate study. Expect that blog posts may be even more sporadic, if such a thing is possible.
Before we hit the ground running with orientation and classes, I have a full two weeks to enjoy the end of summer. Now that I've figured out that my internet can be set up without an ethernet cable (it did involve extra steps but I figured them out so can feel almost as smart as my sister (the smart twin)), here are three great things about California living thus far:
1. Housing "Wait," you say, "didn't you have a terrible number in the housing lottery?" Why yes, I did! After ending up as number three-thousand-two-hundred-and-something out of 3500 lottery entries, I had to wait to the third round of the lottery to be assigned. I ended up on campus in a midrise single-converted-into-a-double. I wasn't sure what to expect, but the setup works well for a number of reasons:
My roommate had moved in at the beginning of the summer and chose to take the living room (with the table and sofa) over the bedroom (with the actual door that actually closes). This left me with my own contained room, a nice plus.
Since we're in a midrise, we get what almost no graduate housing has: a balcony. I got two outdoor armchairs yesterday (at grad-student prices on end-of-summer sale) and both our rooms open onto the balcony with sliding glass doors so we still get communal space even without a living room.
Rent is awesome, lower even than at my last place, which we AmeriCorps types appreciate. This is only true in this particular type of housing so it works out pretty well.
My roommate is an incredibly nice person. I assume this is true of most people (including these Stanford types), but it's still great to get that confirmation from meeting her.
2. Weather According to The Weather Channel's website, the hottest months in Palo Alto are June and September. Both have average highs of 80 degrees Farenheit with average lows of 55 and 53 respectively. The coolest months are December and January, which have average highs of 59 degrees and average lows of 39 and 38 respectively. This allows for lots of time studying on the aforementioned balcony and enjoying the fall, winter, and spring sunshine which abound. I've decided to block out all memories of snowstorms for the present moment and enjoy our balcony.
3. Everything Organic Sunday involved the discovery of a farmer's market near campus which charges reasonable prices for extremely high-quality produce, 80+% of which was organic, with all proceeds going directly to the farmers. I've decided that Sunday is my new grocery-shopping day. Lest you be concerned that this might end in the cold of winter winter, the farmer's market is held every Sunday year-round (see great thing #2: weather).
Yes, it's been two days and I'm already happy here. I get to spend my time picking classes, running errands, and meeting wonderful people. Today I enjoyed a two-hour lunch with one of my cohortmates, who just returned to the US in June from three years teaching English to students of all ages in China. I'm going to love it here.
I hope you're loving wherever you are! Enjoy the start of classes, school types!
[Note to Snan in light of her recent blog post: Isn't it amazing how we're so different given our amazing twin powers and general sameness? "It's like we're the same person. But not."]
No comments:
Post a Comment