Matt and I took our first trip on the bus into the city yesterday. The idea was to find a Wells Fargo bank so I could open a checking account, which I did. The alterior (and probably more realistic) motive was to find a game store and pick up Halo 3 - which we also accomplished.

In fact, I’m sitting in Matt’s dorm room right now, watching his roommate play Halo 3 as I type this. I just finished homework for German, which I feel very accomplished about. One thing I don’t understand, though, is how we’re supposed to do the lab book work, since it requires an audio accompaniment, of which I have none. I quadruple-checked all of the things I wrote down on the first day, all the hand-outs we got and so on, and none mention any web links where we can find the audio accompaniment, so I sent my professor an e-mail, but I did what I could otherwise.

In stark contrast to my normal routine, I took a trip to the gym with Matt and Evver today and, believe it or not, actually worked out. It felt good. I’m a little sore now, as is to be expected, but at the same time, it’s a good feeling. Decently hot out today, too - 72 degrees, somewhere in that vicinity. We went to Jamba Juice to get something to drink afterward. Matt and I being from the East, we’ve been deprived of Jamba Juice, and I’ve gotta say, it’s pretty good.

Ok, on to what everyone’s really interested in, my classes. I had German first, on Thursday. My professor, Yingjie Huang, is really nice; her English is a little broken, so she speaks 90% of the time in German, which is just as well, because already I’m picking it up quickly. Besides the minor hang-up with the lack of an audio accompaniment for the lab book, the class and even the homework is fun to do.

Math 3A, or calculus, isn’t even really calculus yet. The first day we went over the class syllabus, and then talked for a bit about exponential functions, which was entirely review. In fact, if all goes to plan, the whole class should be review, seeing as I’ve already taken AP Calculus BC. The professor, Professor Agboola, is African, with some sort of African (yet strangely British-sounding) accent, and he’s got some great mannerisms. “Oh crumbs” was a class favorite.

Chemistry is a pain to get up for. It’s an 8 a.m. class, which means I have to get up at 7 a.m., which wouldn’t be so bad if I was still on Eastern time and it felt like 10, but I’m not, so it’s somewhat agonizing. Professor Hooker is a nice enough guy, although I was talking to one of my friend’s friends last night at a pizza place (Woodstock’s! Makes me think of Charlie Brown), and he wasn’t a fan of Hooker at all. My friend Colin is in the class, though, so he and I will help each other out.

Finally, Physics was an interesting experience. The professor, Professor Sherwin, seems sort of absent-minded. That is, he trailed off a lot, would take a while to finish sentences and complete his thoughts, and so on. But he does know what he’s talking about. He did an interesting demo (which I’d seen before, but still) where he dropped a magnet through a very tall copper tube, and some mysterious force made the magnet take a very long time to fall through the tube. Eventually he explained it had something to do with the electromagnetic field generated by the magnet and the copper, and forces pushing perpendicular to its direction of travel, or something along that vein. He went through it kind of quickly, and it was things we haven’t covered yet, so maybe I’ll be able to explain the demo better in the near future.

I then had a Physics discussion. It was mainly just introductions from students, and I found out that there’s another kid from New Hampshire in my class. He’s from New Hampton, no less, which is only about 15 minutes from home. Matt and I have now each found another kid from our state; we discovered a kid from New Haven, CT the other night while looking for our friend Kyle in a different wing of his residence hall. That brings our out-of-state total up to perhaps 10 or so. Not a lot, whatever it happens to be.

That’s all there is to say about classes and school at the moment. I’m loving it here, although I do miss everyone at home. I will update more in the near future as classes get more interesting and we get into the swing of things.

I’m out.

Later.

Yes, I’m finally starting classes. Today I’ve got German I from 11:00 to 11:50, and then Calculus from 12:30 to 1:45. Should be fun.

Finally got around to putting some pictures up. Not a lot of time to write this morning, still have to take a shower and unpack my backpack so I have room for my books, but I put some pictures on Facebook of the flight in and a few shots of the campus. I’ll put more on later today with pictures of my room and more parts of the campus, but for now, this should suffice.

Even if you don’t have Facebook, the pictures can be seen here.

[Edit 4:12pm PST] I now have pictures of my room here.

I’m out.

Later.

Well, I’m in Santa Barbara now. I know, relieving news, my mom and I didn’t get lost/robbed/on the wrong flight/on no flight at all/etc.

The first day we got in was exciting. Got up at 4 in the morning (EST), packed what little I had left hanging around my room and bathroom, and headed off to the bus station. Said goodbye to my dad and brother, and got in a bus with a few yappy women talking about hairstyles and got to Logan at about 5:30.

The flight out to Phoenix (not Denver) wasn’t bad. I fell asleep for a lot of it, but woke up enough to take some cool pictures of the clouds and the land beneath, which I’ll put on my computer either today or tomorrow. Once on Phoenix, I made the happy discovery of free wireless in the airport, which kept me entertained for the next couple hours. We finally boarded to go to Santa Barbara, and made that flight in roughly an hour.

Once in Santa Barbara, mom and I made our way over to the car rental area (toting 4 ENORMOUS duffel bags), where we picked up a really cool Toyota Camry Hybrid. It took is a couple minutes to figure out that when we pressed the “power” button on the inside and the lights came on, that the car was actually on - it made virtually no noise at all. It was really cool.

We took a drive over to our hotel, a Ramada, dropped off our stuff, and then took a little drive into downtown Santa Barbara, where I took a few more pictures. I must say that the scenery down by the water is really quite cool; although it was drizzling a bit (or just rather overcast by the time we got down there), we could still look out over the water to the towering mountains on the far side. Mountains which I’ve decided I’m hiking at least one over the next four years, by the way. Can’t pass up such an opportunity.

This morning, we got up around 8:30 or so (plenty early, seeing as how it felt like 11:30 back home), took a drive over to the campus, and then went over to the University Center (UCen). We ended up going back and forth about 3 times - to get my books, to bring them back to the car, to go back to get my access card, to go back to the car to see if we left my student ID there, to go back to UCen to pick up my student ID at customer service - you can probably deduce the sequence of events that took place between those trips. It was a bit overcast again most of this morning, but still the campus was really cool. I’m really happy to be living here for the duration of the school year.

We finally took a drive over to Francisco Torres (after stopping to eat in Isla Vista), where I’ll be staying. It consists of two 10-story residence halls, and they are BIG, I’ll say that much. Both combined house about 1,300 freshmen - slightly larger than the entire population of my high school.

More will come in the coming days, including the few pictures I took on my camera phone, as well as a quasi-review of the food options in downtown Santa Barbara (as mom and I discover them tonight when we head down there for dinner).

I’m out.

Later.

I venture out to California in a little less than 5 days’ time. I will be documenting my time out there on this blog, for all of my family and friends and whomever else to read.

In the meantime, I may be changing this site visually to fit the new theme of my time out in California.

Keep checking back for updates as the days remaining approach 0, and beyond.

I’m out.

Later.