Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city

I moved into my new summer apartment on Monday. The apartment itself is noticeably more crappy compared to my normal campus apartment, but there are only 4 of us there so it seems spacious enough. There is this horrific tiles from the 1970's in a mustard yellow and dingy orange decorative pattern and dark green couches. Whoever designed the apartment had no sense of color theory. But there is amazing shower pressure so I'm going to take as many showers as I can. Megan is in the other room and there are two roommates who I just met. They seem nice enough, but everyone tends to be around the apartment at different times. In fact, two of the three nights I was there, my roommate Amanda didn't even sleep in the room which will be nice if it continues because then it's practically a single. The elevator is one of the slowest known to man, but I'm not in a hurry. Summer session is actually quite pleasant. I'm enjoying being back in a city atmosphere.

I started class this Wednesday and was surprised at how it sucked less than I had expected. The classroom is in the geology building which is, in my opinion, one of the prettier buildings on campus. It is made of large stones, old wood floors, and detailed carved archways. I even found a secret courtyard. Well, it's probably not a secret, I just hadn't seen it before. The class only has about 20-25 students, and the teacher is this really friendly older man. I'm not much of a science person, but I think I made the right choice by taking oceanography and not something like physics or chemistry. The class has only been 2 hours a day so far but will get longer next week because we start a lab.

The rest of my free time I spent wandering campus. I just started "A Confederacy of Dunces," hearing it was a good book from some friends, so I get coffee and sit on campus and read. And since campus is practically devoid of students, it's really nice. Although they have orientation every week for the new students coming in. You can tell they are new because they have to walk around with big yellow nametags and sit in circles doing ice breaker games with an orientation advisor. It really was an annoying time...orientation. I discovered that a bunch of ADPi girls are living here this summer so I stopped by to say hi to them and they told me about how they found a lost dog and named it "Grandpa". We took it for a walk but halfway there Grandpa started hyperventilating and deciding it had overexerted itself one of the girls had to pick it up and carry it home.

I went to Sonia's, my ex-roommate, wedding the other night. It was just the reception and was at this Chinese restaurant in Monterey Park, but it was such a strange feeling to see someone I had lived with all year in a different setting and all decked out in her bride gear. I'll miss having her around the apartment this year.

I'm back spending the 4th of July weekend with my family and anticipating our usual traditions on Monday. I'll talk about that next time.