Evil-Doers

It s been 12 days since I last blogged and a lot has happened over this time. I know 12 days is an awfully long time but I had good reason. Last weekend, someone broke into my apartment and made away with my laptop. The funniest part about it is that it happened the evening after they had just finished telling us, at orientation, to watch our belongings and lock our doors. What they failed to tell us is that we should also watch out for thieves who cut away screens and pry windows open. The theft could not have come at a worse time. School starts in a few days and I absolutely need a laptop, not only for my class work, but also for my TA duties. Money is tight right now and I am still trying to come up with a way to finance another PC. Luckily, I had just backed up most of my files a month before moving, but I still lost about 3 weeks worth of my undergraduate research. I hate to give the impression that my new school is unsafe (the police were actually very helpful. They took pictures of the break in and also had a detective do a follow-up the next day) but coming from a school where you could leave your laptop unattended and still find it at the same place, this will take a while to get used to.

Other than my unfortunate incident, the days have pretty much been taken up with orientation. It’s amazing how much information they feed you and expect you to remember. After 6 days of those torturous orientation sessions, I knew I was pretty much at my breaking point. Yesterday, as if to make up for all they had made us go through, they decided to feed us at the departmental welcome barbecue. I am sure I would be a very happy TA, if they had those barbecues every Friday.