Long day, but it didn't seem so. IHUM section from 9-10:30 was passable, actually, though it seems like our class has more potential than just "passable." Perhaps it's a characteristic of the course: it's neither political philosophy nor very detailed history, so we just have a bunch of vaguenesses to discuss. With luck, it'll get better as we get more reading. Between that and 11am lecture, I went to the library to check out some books.

Nope, no huge upcoming research project. These were books for leisure reading. How long has it been since I've done that at school? The last non-class reading I remember was some Ayn Rand over Thanksgiving break and a short novel Betsy gave me for my birthday. So I was super-excited to have those books, and headed to math lecture where I actually paid attention. Well, only during the new material. Our TA seems to be half a step ahead of every lesson; we'd already gotten the reduced-row echelon schpiel in section yesterday.

After lecture, I headed to a long-awaited meeting with my advisor to talk about this pet project of mine: a wilderness experience component to augment our regular orientation. It's a huge undertaking, and I'm not sure it's going to work, but I'm going to try so hard to make it happen. Basically, even though I love being here at school, I felt really lost during formal orientation. We were way too busy shuffling from one "informational" session to another—much; too quickly for any of this information to be shuttled to long-term memory—to even initiate real friendships. Another thing is that, especially in a huge dorm like Branner, you inevitably settle into a small group of friends which coincidentally happens to be your hall, your wing, or some other randomly-determined factor. Heck, there are still 5 or 10 faces which I'd be at a loss to pair with even a name! I'm pretty confident the crucible of ound-the-clock interaction with a small group of people is a much better way of getting to know others. This crucible has taken many different forms in other schools' orientation programs, but most notably in novel, relatively inexpensive, and low-risk outdoor trips. Stanford is not only situated in a perfect place for wilderness trips, but we've got an active, skilled, and enthusiastic outdoor community which is a perfect pool from which to draft these trip leaders.

Okay, off the soapbox. I'll probably keep gathering information, and draft a more coherent proposal by next weekend. Meanwhile, to bed. SOOP training starts at 9am tomorrow. Boy, I just keep spewing out more acronymns that need to be explained, don't I? Well, tough luck. Til next time!