<sup>Stanford has been an amazing experience so far, and I know I'm going to change my mind about this when classes starts and the workload triples. Probably even more than that. I just know this.

Moving in was a very exciting experience. I'm relatively close to home, far closer than my peers who had to move from across the country or from another continent, but my parents still miss me. I feel fine, though I had a little bit of homesickness on Tuesday. The people here are very exciting. All of them are unique individuals with something to teach me, and I've been learning from each and every one of them, no matter their interests and background. But that still doesn't mean that friendships are formed quickly. I've only really bonded to one person in particular, and he's a guy from Trinidad, a math fanatic and an insomniac; he promises to help me with calculus this year, since I'm probably taking a course that's too hard for my mathematical expertise, yet needed for later courses. I get along fine with everybody else, and my roommate and I seem to have a really comfortable thread of communication, but still it doesn't mean that long-lasting friendships will arise, and I like long-lasting relationship.

The library here scares me. Standing at the entrance to the lower stacks and looking ahead is like looking into a dark abyss of shelves. It's thrilling and morbid. Crimes might happen down there and never be discovered. And yet I want to work in the library this year, if only I can find time to properly sit down at the computer for an extended period of time and get through all the information I want to process.

I'm finding it difficult to take the time to call my parents, friends, and other family who would be interested in knowing how I'm doing. There just so many events to attend during this orientation week, and I'm not certain if the schedule will be any looser when classes start. So I feel really, really guilty about that. If only Facebook had a common journaling system where I could post this and update all my peeps there at once, it would probably help in communications.

And there's so much to do, so many different paths to take, it's exciting. Opportunities are definitely open, people are readily helpful, and paths are blazed for you to take your first step so that you'll be more prepared when reaching the end of the road and it's your turn to continue blazing onwards. Facebook contacts readily doubles.</sup>