Day Two

We've really jumped right into the academic aspect of college life, just as quickly as we have dorm life. Luckily I got to wake up at a more reasonable hour today and I feel the best rested that I've felt all week. I met up with Emily and Simon this morning for breakfast, as well as Valerie and afterwards we went to class.

The struggle continues as we try to get into Emily's room to blog.

In my class today we delved deeper into the 20 page research paper assignment and it's requirements. We each got a stapled packet of numbered guidelines to refer to when writing the paper and covered the whole thing (about 30 points)  in about an hour. The paper covered just about my entire English class' curriculum this year, and in just one class period. This class moves very fast and I can already tell just how rigorous it is going to be. 

I already feel a little stressed - there's a lot on my plate at the moment. For starters, tomorrow I'll have chosen my essay topic and therefore the two hour period after lunch will have to be devoted to writing it instead of to reading my nightly assigned article. Top that off with blogging and making time for other people and visits around the city, and it looks like I might not be getting all that sleep I'd been excited about. 

All that aside, I'm happy I'm here, interacting with all of these interesting people. I'm still amazed that I have this opportunity to come and study at Columbia University with all of these people that I would never have gotten to meet otherwise. I already feel as though the Ivy League Connection has helped me to clarify what kind of disciplines I might be interested in studying and what colleges would be right for me. Without the ILC, I wouldn't have had this clarification as early on, and I really am grateful to get to have this experience.

Besides realizing just how broad the world is and how many different people there are, I have experienced also today that it can be a small world too. During a campus-wide game of manhunt, I ran into an RA wearing a USF tank top and struck up a conversation with her. It turns out that she actually knows and took a class with my older sister (who also studies at USF). It's crazy just how much you learn about the world by meeting people.