no more shopping plz

Hey friends,

I've been in CA for about two days now, and let me tell you: caltech is GORGEOUS. First of all, let's cover the smell upgrade. You may remember the semen trees outside of Olin Hall. Thumbs down to those stinkpots. Outside of Spalding Hall (my new Olin) there are a bunch of trees with pretty pink flowers that I will call fruit loops trees because they smell just like the breakfast cereal. Funny story: my dad saw a bunch of the flowers on the ground that had fallen off the trees. He says "oh, they must have had some sort of ceremony outside your building. maybe a wedding?" and my mom was like "yeah, or maybe the WIND BLEW THEM OFF" and my dad looks up and sees the pink flowers on the trees. Whoopsies.

I met with housing to get my apartment assignment, and the woman at the desk saw my license and she was like "oh you're from Fairport? I used to visit friends there for Thanksgiving every year!" So even in Los Angeles county, I can't escape the Fairport connection. Oh, so housing... thankfully I got a 4-bedroom apt, aka the cheapest on-campus housing option. With all the money I will save, I'll be able to eat more than once a week! I've only met one of my roommates so far, because one (Matt?) is in New Zealand till next week, and the other (Isaac?) is at some 3-week biophysics conference every day from 8am till 11pm, and I haven't seen him yet. I did meet Jeff for all of like 3 minutes... he's a geological sciences grad student who plays the trombone. He already started working for his department and he takes music lessons at night, so I'm the resident slacker/underachiever. From sleuthing around our common space, here's what I've gathered:

• someone loves soy: soymilk, soy ice cream, soy nuggets... yum?
  
• someone loves coronas: I had the urge to put the empty bottles away and say "OH HO HO HO HO!"
  
• someone loves guitar hero: I almost brought mine but I didn't have room in my suitcase. Lucky me, I have roommates with compatible video game tastes.
  
• nobody loves cable TV: I guess I'll have to go without my silly bravo reality shows... or find them online somewhere.

I managed to ship a lot of my things from home: my computer, my textbooks, and a lot of clothes. My coffee pot also arrived... albeit in 2,000 more pieces than I had hoped. Stupid bubble wrap fail. What I couldn't ship or pack, I ended up buying over the past two days. I am shopped out! And poor! I used up a bunch of gift cards that I've been saving since last christmas, and my funds are tapped dry. Time to start making the big bucks as a grad student.

Speaking of the grad students, I went to a chE social today. That's right, we abbreved chemE even further. I don't know how it's pronouced though. chee? chuh-ee? Whatev, I'm still calling myself a chemE. Anyway, the other grad students... I met some of the first years and they seem nice. There are definitely no candidates for Trouble Squad v2.0 as of yet. I'll get to spend more time with them on Monday, when we have our official first meeting with professors. I'm getting nervous!

Ok, I'm going to eat melted Almond Joys and butternut squash ravioli while I look for youtube versions of this past week's project runway & top design. I miss all y'all tons. Come visit southern california! It's delightful! And I need friends!