Moved in and Settled!

Greetings from my new dorm room at Berkeley! Move in was pretty smooth, besides the fact that I, as usual, had the largest amount of luggage, which was impossible to drag through doors, into elevators, and up and down stairs. I question whether I will ever fix this overpacking problem.

I spent most of my afternoon/evening meeting and having introductions with the other Scholars that are here. I ended up taking a shuttle from SFO with two other girls from the program, and after we got here we wandered around a bit before heading to dinner. It was pretty empty since we got there right when it opened, and we all did the easiest thing possible and ate pizza. I'm interested though to explore all the other food options and wonder when it will start getting as bad as I'm told it's supposed to be. We ended up seeing three other girls from the program just as we were finishing our dessert, and hung out with them for a little while in the dining hall before wandering to Walgreens for things people didn't pack, and then back to the dorms to try and meet everyone else that had moved in.

The rest of my time in between all the introductions was spent unpacking and hanging out in my room. The dorms here are probably the typical freshman dorms, much like Warren or West for my BU followers. My room is a triple, but I only have one roommate (who I will meet in the morning). I'm on the seventh floor, and let me say that the most incredible thing about my room is the view. Next year's Charles River view in my apartment in Boston is going to have a pretty hard time topping this one:

Unzoomed photo of my view during the afternoon

Sather Tower at sunset as seen from my room

I don't have pictures of this, but pretty far off to the side in the view is some body of water (probably the Bay?).

Like I mentioned above, my room is pretty much typical dorm style:

I have the right side of the room, with the single bunked bed and a double desk underneath. I had a LOT of furniture rearranging to do because the bed ladder wouldn't fit on the bed where the desk is. Unfortunately, on the back side of the bed, I have a dresser and a small shelf. Everything was always going to block something and it ended up that convenient ladder positions would prevent the dresser drawers from opening at all. I finally ended up figuring something out with minimal blockage:

I'm very happy with the layout, and I don't mind having to climb through furniture to get to my ladder. I'm just glad that I could minimize blockades and have a little alleyway to walk through, and have all of my things easily accessible. I have all of my necessary girly hair products and beauty things organized on top of the dresser and shelf, nothing is really that blocked (except that the shelves, which are half in the closet, prevent the sliding closet door from opening all the way, but that's not a big deal), and the ladder is actually secured onto the bed, and I can thus get onto my bed without risk of the ladder slipping. However, speaking of my bed, it's actually really rickety. Every time I climb onto my bed I'm super afraid that I'm going to shake it too hard and fall. 

I've also made my bed area super homey. I have Clappy and Pikachu, in addition to Nemo and Bubbles (who I bought at the Disney Store last week). I always bring my calendar when I travel for extended periods of time, and for this trip, I also decided to bring my postcard collage since it was easy to carry. My bed is now super homey. It was a struggle to get it that way though! The whole next-to-bed area is a giant cork board, and I now have blisters all over my fingers from struggling with the pushpins. I'm happy with the result though!

There are other miscellaneous things I had to do, like get everything wired. Luckily, the room is small enough / my cords were just long enough that everything can reach both the desk and bed. Hooray for workspace choices! 

After I'd finished unpacking and organizing everything, I read the little welcome packet I got when I checked in. 

It's very handy because it has things like important phone numbers, a color campus maps with things like the dining areas highlighted, and general resource information. Also included in the info packet was something I'm always shocked is a legitimately important issue, even though I know it's common out West - earthquakes.

I know they're very common out here, but being from the East Coast, I guess it just never occurred to me that preparing for earthquakes is as common and important out West as something like a fire drill. I've only experienced an earthquake once (which was ironically on the East Coast), so I guess it's good that I'm aware about what to do in the event of an earthquake now that I'm living in an earthquake - prone area. 

Tomorrow two GAs are having a get together over coffee to help everyone meet and get to know each other. From what I've gathered, people are very interested in going to the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, so I'm hoping that actually happens! We have the entire weekend free for Memorial Day, so I'm looking forward to hanging out, getting to know everyone better, and exploring Berkeley!