Grad School Begins...

...in a rush. I flew in from Europe Tuesday night not knowing much more than (1) I was doing grad school at Cornell in Mechanical Engineering and (2) I had one day before classes started. Well, so that's a small exaggeration, but I definitely wasn't on top of things at this point.

Life in Ithaca got off to a good start moments after walking out of the local airport, when a chemistry professor (who had overheard on the plane that I was new) offered a ride into town. This saved me waiting around for a bus that took the long way (over 1/2 an hour) into town. I found the key to my apartment alright (after a little wandering around since I forgot to write down the exact address), and proceeded to settle in. Which took about two minutes since I only had my small carry-on (My luggage hadn't made it on the same plane as me to Ithaca). I am in a two room apartment, and my flatmate's name is Richard (a 2nd year law student).

Despite the lack of stuff, I slept alright (I had been up for 24 hours traveling) and woke up nice and early the next morning for orientation stuff. I missed alot of it earlier in the week, but it wasn't much of a loss (much better to be hanging out in Nuremburg that weekend!). My apartment is situated about a 10 minute walk from the engineering quad, which is not bad at all!

After a breakfast from the Engineering grad society, I went and found the graduate coordinator for Mech E and within a couple hours, I had done all the running around I needed to. That was a very welcome break after the uber-beaurocracy of Germany! After a BBQ put on by some other engineering organization (free food is good) I went back to my apartment, then walked about 10 minutes to downtown on a reconaissance mission.

Ithaca is a very nice historic-ish town amidst rolling tree covered hills and right at the south end of Cayuga Lake, which is about 50 miles long. there are a tons of old victorian and craftsman houses, and the downtown had a nice stretch of pedestrian zone. More importantly I found two excellent guitar stores within a couple blocks of each other, both with different styles, but first class guitars in stock.

My bag finally showed up in the evening, and I ended up watching a movie with a couple of the other new MechE grad students who live in the next building over (this will be handy for late homework nights I think).

The next morning I had my first class at 8:40, but fortunately it was my only class. After catching up on email, I went back to my apartment and went running/exploring in the gorge right behind my apartment. It's very nice, and after descending, I did not see a house the whole way. It opens up into a small reservoir a ways up, and there are remains of an old powerhouse up there. Plenty of good swimming holes in the river down there, but it was a little chilly for that. Then I went back up to campus and met up with Keith, a friend of mine from middle/high school who is in his senior year here. We had dinner at his place and hung out/watched a movie, and it was good to see someone else familiar!

Today I only had one class as well, and thus have time to catch up on this blogging stuff. Not sure what my weekend plans are, but if its nice some long hikes are in order. Wow. if you stuck through this post until now, you must be really interested. I'll cut the rambling now and try to get some pictures in the next post.