Umm...

Ok. So I am not yet ready to declare Brandeis a specatcular fail or success. It certainly has its good points. I guess that is what I will first focus on. Umm...good things. Ok.
1. Very diverse campus life. There are people here from all over the world, and it shows in their names, their faces, and their personalities.
2. Everyone is nice. Well, that false orientation nice. Kind of pretentious actually...Only good things! Ok.
3. My roommates are fantastic. We all really get along pretty well. All of them like Harry Potter and the Beatles, so what more do we really need? We spent last night talking for hours getting all the deep personal stuff out of the way. It was good.
4. One of the buildings is aqua. Not sure if that qualifies as good or bad...its neat.
5. Everyone seems to be very intent on being themselves.
6. The one theatre I have seen is nice.

I know there are more things, I just can't think of them right now because I of course am homesick. I had exceptionally amazing friends at home, and everyone here seems to have come with friends...I miss mine...

The bad things are foremost in my mind right now.
1. The Orientation process is very disorganized. Half the time I have no idea what I am supposed to be gaining from the hoops they have us jumping through.
2. The food in Sherman dining hall sucks. Hard core. Half is kosher and half is not which is apparently unique to Brandeis. Just the fact that kosher and nonkosher people can eat side by side without a huge fear of contamination. It drops the segregation which is nice.
3. My OL (Orientation Leader) keeps ditching my group. This is not so bad, as my group is really cohesive and we always find each other.
4. People are mildly pretentious, which I guess I already mentioned.
5. It's hard to make friends. As true as it is that everyone is new, its also a fact that during the first few weeks everyone stays tight with their preexisting friends. Which sucks for me.
6. No AC in the dorm rooms. I was up all night because it was just too hot to sleep. It was really uncomfortable.

I am going to purposely stop while the two are even. I will do my best to positively enumerate the events of the past few days.

Sunday was...hot as hell. Not kidding. Sunday was the day I moved in. Said goodbye to mom, got set up in the dorm, learned exactly how overwhelming the Brandeis campus is, and a ton of other things. My CA (Community Advisor. Not RA, Res Advisor, because at Brandeis we are all COMMUNITY) seems cool. She is very straightforward. Her words at our hall meeting "Don't fuck with me, or I will fuck you right back." That i can work with. She seems nice enough, just not someone who is willing to take shit from anyone. Which I respect immensely. (PS, everyone on campus uses foul language. Everyone.)

Umm...my adventures today were rather boring. I met my OL group for breakfast at Sherman at some ungodly hour of the morning. It was 8. UUUGHH. I don't remember any of what was said at breakfast, which is ok because apparently no one else did either. We did orientation activities all day which ranged from learning about the values of Brandeis to getting our class photo taken (800 hot and sweaty freshmen. yummy.). Oh, I met another theatre person at the ice cream social. She seems pretty cool. We have exchanged numbers, and are meeting up again later tonight to watch the Brandeis screening of the Dead Poet Society. A movie I love. I just got back from a concert...some local band that was just waaaay too loud for my taste. So I am here in my room...ritter ronery...