It isn't every day while sitting in a hundred-plus-year-old building, that one experiences an earthquake. Frankly, my first impression was to laugh; after all a room looks funny jiggling like a bowl of jello-salad. Also, the bewildered looks on the faces of the teacher & student panel appointed to orient incoming grad-students momentarily gave me a perverse satisfaction to see them looking the way I had been feeling for the last two days.
The humor I found in the situation, unfortunately, was short lived as my campus went into a state of emergency. This emergency turned out to mean that all students and staff on campus had to join the grad students in our orientation auditorium. To make room for this large number of people, all our tables and chairs were packed away. Once our seating arrangements had been folded up and made inaccessible, our swelling numbers led the powers that be to decide it would help control the excitable atmosphere in the room if everyone sat down, and so we all had to sit on the ground. Had I known in the morning that an earthquake would have me sitting on the ground for 45 minutes, I wouldn't have worn a skirt today.
Today has been by far the most interesting day in DC, and the one which should have produced the most anxiety or emotion--afterall earthquakes are supposed to be disconcerting and leave you feeling vulnerable and out of control. For whatever reason, I experienced significantly more anxiety walking to the bus stop for the first time on Monday, than I did in the midst of a seismic wave. Perhaps after moving across the country and anticipating a demanding grad school experience has used up all my available reserves of worry. Or, more likely, an event so far out of my control that it cannot be anticipated, predicted or prepared for, cannot, therefore, be worried about.
In other news, I moved to Washington DC last week--well, no, not really. Technically I'm in the northern tip of Silver Spring, MD, a city just north of DC, but accessible by metro from the city. Mom, Dad, and bro Josh helped me get settled in last week. This is how it went: my dad and brother moved the heavy stuff and then toured my neighborhood, reporting back to me any places of interest. My mom was sociable and motherly towards my new roommate, Hannah, while unpacking my kitchen supplies, bathroom supplies, clothes, and bedding. And I wandered around in a daze, occasionally inserting myself into a conversation before returning to my comforting boxes and boxes of books that I had decided was my number one priority to unpack and organize on my bookshelves. Eliza, my cat, ran around alternating between getting in the way and trying to escape.
Somehow I mustered my courage on Monday to venture out of my new sanctuary and go for an early morning run before getting myself ready for day one of Orientation. I will not bore you, readers, with the details of orientation. Imagine a degree in pedagogy being completed in one and a half days and you'll have some idea of the task the orienteers are facing and the mixture of unnecessary and crucial information the orientees are subject to.
Eliza has suddenly become very interested in sitting top of my hands right now, as I'm trying to finish this post. So, to save myself from an unhappy cat, I'll end this post. Till next time...
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