One Down, Twelve to Go

The long wait is over. You no longer have to read any boring shit about my grad school application, my writing sample, or agonizing over whether I get accepted. Nope. Now you get to read horribly dull stories about me actually attending school. For those not around for all the old boring stuff, I'm at a small liberal arts college in Baltimore attending the initial two-week residency. The idea is that during this two weeks, the students live on campus, get to know their mentor, learn about the program, hear some readings by experienced writers and do some workshops. After this two weeks, we go home and communicate with our mentors by snail mail, phone, and email.

I was supposed to get in by three pm yesterday, then attend a kick-off dinner and then have drinks with the students and staff. I rolled in exhausted at nine pm and missed all that. So I'm starting off at a bit of a disadvantage.

I did meet my suite-mate however - I have a room to myself, but we share a bathroom and an entryway. It was apparent rather quickly that he is going to be an excellent suite-mate if for no other reason than he has taken the opposite strategy from me as far as creature comforts go. I brought as little as possible, and he brought everything he could think of, plus he's made several trips to various stores to pick up whatever else he could think of.

He bought two air fresheners (and gave me one), extra pillows (and gave me one), two kinds of glass cleaner, spray air freshener, laundry detergent, paper towels, real toilet paper, sunscreen and a fan. He plans to go back and get a bigger fan, a lamp and a trash can. I plan to suggest a microwave oven.

It hasn't been a great first day. I was a half hour late to a one-hour computer class and then was so late for an evening reading, given by my mentor, that I just decided to skip it. Not good.

So that's all for now. I'm busy and harried and exhausted.