Insignificant Post

Two days ago marked 3 months in Seattle. Only 3 months! Oftentimes it feels like I've been gone so long, but it has only been 3 months!

Last week was thankfully a short week, but it sure felt like an extra long one. Tuesday and Wednesday I spent at SSCC and got lots accomplished. At the IP office at SSCC we offer airport pick ups for international students for a small fee, and on Wednesday night I had my first airport pick up assignment. I was horrified at the idea of driving to the airport, alone, for the first time, and in the dark, but the first half of the trip went perfectly fine. The student found me and the sign I was holding with his name on it and I dropped him off at his host family's house. It was when I was returning to SSCC when everything went horribly wrong; I pulled into the college's driveway with the car only to see that the gates to the parking lot were shut and locked. I frantically called Zach and my supervisor, but I couldn't really be helped since the security office on campus was already closed and it's not like I had any way to contact the correct help. So I ended up just driving over the grass to get to a visitor parking lot and I had to leave it there for the night. It was already past midnight, and I was not happy about how long the whole situation was taking. Well, it gets worse. As I was driving across the lawn, I noticed the very last bus to downtown Seattle careening down the road. After several minutes of pure panic and distress, I caught the last bus going in the wrong direction, and ended up transferring buses in a horrible neighborhood at 1am in order to get back to downtown Seattle. It was a long, horrible night; but I'm glad it's over and I've already had another airport pick up that went much, much better than my first one.

Thursday and Friday I spent all day at GAship Training/Orientation. Between the two days, we had 6 hours of Jesuit 101, 6 hours of Cultural Competency Training, and 2 hours of Graduate Assistantship Basics. Though I was a little bitter about the readings for trainings, and of course the long, two day schedule, the entirety of it was entirely helpful. I was nervous about attending a Jesuit university and knowing nothing about the Jesuits, so now I feel a lot more prepared to represent my institution as a student and graduate assistant. The cultural competency training was some of the best I ever had, and it sure was nice to get closer to other students in my cohort at the same time. The bonding continued when we went out to Happy Hour together afterwards.

Besides my second airport pickup on Saturday, I had a decent weekend. Saturday I met up with my friend Kaily for coffee and we talked a lot about Seattle University and our life plans. Sunday night Zach and I went over to the apartment of someone in my cohort in order to cook sushi together and play some videogames. It was the most social weekend I think I've had since moving here, so that feels good!

When I started typing this blog post, I thought maybe I might have something interesting to say about my past week, but now I feel as though I really didn't. For those of you who read to the end, I'm sorry that this was slightly boring. I'm trying to work on my theme blogging, where I don't just ramble about my life between blog posts, but I actually get fired up about something and have a specific theme or subject to my posts. Yeah, we'll see how that goes.

Believe it or not, classes FINALLY start next week Thursday! I am stoked to order my books once my GAship check comes in! Until next time... (^_^)