Every day's a new day

Orientation. REX. Dorm Rush.

Whatever you want to call it, it rocks hard.

Seriously, I cannot even begin to contain how awesome today has been. I've met up with so many amazing people, students and faculty, friends new and old. I've talked to President Susan Hockfield twice (!), and I also introduced myself to Daniel Hastings - the Dean of Undergraduate Education and, incidentally, my advisor for this semester. I've met more frosh than I can count, and I finally found Shawn and Melissa! They're both awesome people and really fun to be around. Although really, guys - I told you that going into Bexley was a bad idea, and I was right, wasn't I?

Anyway, I've been going to most of the events with a combination of Simmons residents and friends I made during CPW, and I feel like I'm really settling into a social group that works for me. I'm sure things are going to change as we go along, but for now, I'm perfectly content.

Also, all the upperclassmen are still in the phase where they're all "oh look, frosh! Here, have some free food! Any questions on dorms/classes/fraternities/whatever? No? Okay, well, call us if anything comes up!" So basically, right now the upperclassmen rock. Hopefully they'll still rock in a few weeks, after Orientation and Rush have ended; and hopefully I will look less like a frosh and more like an actual student.

...I can dream, can't I?

Now that DME is over (we got third place! More on that later though) I finally have time to actually do my own thing, and that is amazing indeed. Also, I have more pictures than I have time to post now, but they'll show up soon. Probably.

Anyway, fun official REX events that I went to today - Mass at Kresge, Orientation Leader Meetings, Convocation, Simmons Brunch, Simmons Dinner, Kresge Kickoff, East Campus's "Body Electric" Party. Other fun things that I did, in roughly chronological order, because bullet points are freaking awesome:

• hanging out with Sam, Jordan, Allen, Tim, Michael, Rachel, and countless others
• meeting Shawn and Melissa
• seeing random DME'ers everywhere I went
• running into Facebook friends and CPW friends ("Sorry, are we Facebook friends?")
• talking to Susan Hockfield simply because she decided to come to Simmons (I am still shocked that she actually visits the dorms, but at the same time I think it's amazing)
• completing my tour of all the dorms by visiting Bexley and MacGregor
• being mesmerized by Suggy's magic tricks before Kickoff
  
• wandering with friends through Conner 2, guided by super-cool O-Leader and former C2 resident Jeremy
• playing with my East Campus lighter
  
• talking to and meeting the IFC president (Danny), UA president (Marty), an Orientation Coordinator (Eddie), a fraternity president, and a Cambridge exchange student at the same time simply because they were all hanging out on the Student Center steps when I was walking back to Simmons (obligatory *boggle*)

And as cool as all that stuff is, let's not forget the most important thing:

• feeling home at MIT