"this is my reality."

i keep saying that at random times. like when i'm driving over the bridge to get to my condo. or walking the dog along my street. it's crazy!

i guess i have some catching up to do.

my dad helped me move on thursday the 29th, and i promptly went home to reno on friday night... even though i was sort of supposed to stay and get settled. :]

there was just something about being here alone that i wasn't ready for, and i needed to get some things that i'd left behind.

i realize this is not how normal people pack, but it inevitably seems to be my packing style when i move. and it actually worked out well for moving things to the upstairs condo since i have very little upper body strength. ha.
this is evidence that my dad was the one who went shopping with me, not my mom. :] more on this later.

i got back to the condo really late on sunday night because i hit some traffic. i'm realizing that traffic is going to just have to be expected if i want to go home. the three hour drive can easily take six or more hours... especially on friday evening when everyone from the bay is trying to go to tahoe. annoying.

anyway. my orientation started on monday the 2nd.

the first day we had breakfast and some introductions to faculty members, then we took care of some paperwork and met our small group members and advisors. our class of 108 people is broken down into groups of 11 or 12 people with one faculty advisor per group, and we have breakout sessions during lectures and certain group assignments to do in our assigned groups. during lunch, each group had to choose a name and make rules to present to everyone. my group settled on "the touro-nados" for our group name. [in case you didn't know, my school is called touro university. so it's like tornado mixed with the school's name.] one guy even came up with a slogan for us: we're going to blow you away... academically. ha. ha. ha. :] another proposed name was the T-Rxs [like t-rex, but substituting Rx to be nice and nerdy.] i liked that name, but one of our group rules is "this is a democracy", so touro-nados won by a matter of votes. our faculty advisor seems like a nice man. i didn't get to talk with him very much because he was at the other end of the table... so i couldn't really hear him. his background is in biochemistry, and i heard that he has a research lab on campus, so i'm excited about the possibility of doing some lab work with him.

following the group meeting, we finished up more paperwork, got our photos taken for student id cards [my photo is not good, but not horrible.] and then we had a computer session to learn how most things work on campus.

while i waited for my id, another first year and i were talking to a second year guy. he was really nice and gave us a feel for what to expect. the other first year turned out to be a super nice girl named thu [pronounced like the number two]. during the computer session, i met her boyfriend, jason, who is also a first year. it's like the happy ending version of james and me. anyway. they are from san jose and are both really friendly. they showed me around vallejo on monday night and we ate thai food at a local restaurant... not surprising based on that photo of the fridge, right?

on tuesday, we had five hours of cpr training, which was way longer than necessary if you ask me. for lunch, we had a bbq, then we had student introductions. we gathered in the first year classroom, and each person had to say their name, where they were from, and answer a random question then draw a name and announce the next person. that part could get tricky with some of the names, but i think i did ok on that part. the random questions were different for each person. one boy said "give me a hard one" and instead he got an embarrassing one... "do you fold or scrunch your toilet paper?" some were easy like "love or money?" and some were typical like "what fruit/animal/car would you be?" mine was "if we opened your refrigerator, what would we find?" the funny part is, i had taken the above photo a few days earlier. :] i feel like i got off easy, but i also didn't really tell anything about myself in answering the question. oh well.

in case you haven't noticed... i completely failed to take photos during orientation. the first day i forgot my camera, and the second day i just didn't think about it. :/

on wednesday, the second years held a pot luck for the first years. it was at a house here on the island, which happened to be the house of the second year that thu and i talked to during the photo process. i went by for a little while and mingled a bit. for some reason, i just wasn't feeling super social.
it was nilay's birthday. he is a fellow member of the touro-nados, and you can see him directly to the left of the guy who is pointing.
this is thu, jason, and my second year student mentor named rafael. he's really nice, and i'm glad that he was at the party, so i could get to know him a little better. :]
in the very left of this photo is will, who is also a touro-nado. jason is next to him, then diem, and i wish i could remember the rest of the names... oops. this also shows my horrific frizzed out hair. maybe if i wear it like that enough, people will donate to the "i desperately need to have my hair professionally straightened" fund. :]

late that night, james and helix came! i was super happy to see them. of course it makes me sad that james isn't able to move here already, but he has to stay in reno at least for a little while longer. i think part of that might be due to the current softball season. haha. he's on three teams right now, so he stays busy with softball. but he seriously loves it.

we tackled lots of projects around the condo... he sealed the garage floors, helped me with some more cleaning [i feel like it's never ending! i keep thinking i've cleaned all of the cabinets, but then i realize that there are some in a different place that i haven't done yet. ugh. luckily, i don't have enough stuff to need all of them right now. haha.] and then we made a trip to the emergency room. :[

james was trying to separate some of the hot glued stuff that was left here as part of the model furnishings. it was making me nervous, so i told him to be extra careful or just stop. he decided to put on an oven mitt to protect his hand in case anything broke... i told him that was great, but if anything broke it might hit me. so he decided to move outside to the balcony. shortly after, he walked in saying "babe. i think i need stitches." i thought he was kidding because i didn't see any blood and he seemed fine. but i should have been a little more cautious in observing him because i looked right at the problem area by accident. ugh. if you've ever dissected something in anatomy lab, then you know what i saw. it was like once you cut through all the layers of skin... you get to the "meat". i even saw one of his veins, which luckily wasn't cut. there was no blood at that point, but i went into complete panic mode running around getting shoes, keys, his money clip, phones, and then running out to ask my neighbor how to get to the hospital. it did start bleeding eventually, which grossed me out even more.

after a short wait, the ER doctor said he definitely needed some stitches and a tetanus shot. he watched the whole thing! i hid my face and tried my best to maintain some type of composure. after a few questions where james downplayed the severity of his injury [for example: doctor: does it hurt? james: no. doctor: did it bleed a lot? james: no. not really.] she said "ok. i think i'm getting your personality." i thought it was so funny. he really summed himself up within that short visit quite well.

as for the tetanus shot, i forced myself to watch the nurse administer it, after being reminded repeatedly during orientation that one of our activities will be giving flu shots in community clinics. i really need to start conquering my fear of needles. and as a small victory for me, james got a little reminder that shots really do make your arm sore. he had told me that i was a big baby about my shots a few weeks ago, but that night and the following day he commented on how sore his arm was from the shot. he mentioned that a couple times, but never said that his stitches hurt. he's been sticking to his story that he never felt any pain from the cut.

friday entailed more cleaning and painting the furniture from the master bedroom. neither of us liked it much beforehand, but after a simple coat of black paint, we both like it quite a bit. i'll post some photos eventually.

yesterday, we made a trip to sacramento to go to ikea for dishes and drapes. i also found the fabric section that i was beginning to believe was an urban legend. now i'm wondering how i missed it all these times? there is some seriously good stuff in that section. definitely looking forward to going back there for more eventually.

we also decided to fulfill james ever-present craving for korean bbq. we went to oz korean bbq in sacramento, and it was really good. i actually liked it better than the korean bbq we had in hawaii, although it was pretty similar.
oz had amazing bul gogi, which is my dish of choice. we went for the all you can eat, but pretty much got full off of the first round of meat. on the way back, james said he was thinking about who he could go there with to take full advantage of the all you can eat bbq. haha. he also saw a lady he knew from his childhood working there, which was pretty random. it was so funny seeing them recognize each other and figure out that they actually knew each other. i guess she was of his mom's close friend. i couldn't follow much of the conversation after that, but she did tell me that i'm beautiful. :] and i think she might have asked james if we're getting married. haha.

anyway. it's amazing what a difference new drapes, some paint, and a little rearranging made towards making this place feel like home for me. i'm happy to be nearly settled in now, but i'm sad that james and helix went back to reno tonight. he'll be back next weekend and i think that howie and sarah are coming too, so i'm just looking forward to that for now. well. i guess i also have my first day of school to look forward to as well. :]

i'll be back with more soon. i have a couple scrapbook layouts to share, and i'll try to take some photos of the condo as well. ok. off to bed i go!