Slowly Attaining that Cornell Swagger

First of all, waking up at 4:00AM is not the business. That's all I have to say about that.

Second, ITHACA IS AMAZING!!! It is unbelievable. Everybody told me that the campus was beautiful, but nobody could have explained it to me in quite enough detail. The gorges are gorgeous, for lack of a better word, and the people are all extremely friendly. When we boarded our shuttle from the the airport to Ithaca, we progressively met every passenger who boarded with us and everyone started talking like we had known each other for years. Out of these people, there were three californians (four including the driver), one from Utah, one from Wisconsin, and one from Puerto Rico. I must say, Thomas from Wisconsin was the most interesting in my opinion, but Josh from Puerto Rico and Emily from Utah were still pretty cool.

Now that we are actually at Cornell, we are meeting tons of new kids from what seems like every corner of the Earth. So far, I have met people from nearly every state, Jordan, Brazil, China, the Philippines, and probably more that I just cannot think of.

My roommate's name is Matthew O'reilly and the only reason I knew that was because it was posted on my door. We didn't actually see each other until our mandatory room meeting at 9:30PM, but I did see his unpacked luggage and was able to put together that he was a Yankees/Jets fan (therefore probably from New York) and that he enjoys quality movies, such as The Hangover, Taken, The 2009 World Series, and of course, Forest Gump. When I unpacked my clothes, I was careful to leave a little note next to my Brooklyn Dodgers hat, which just has a "B" on it, saying "Brooklyn hat!! Not Boston, I swear". After we met at the meeting we ended up getting along very well and I am definitely looking forward to spending my three weeks here with him.

As for my class, Mr. Kramnick seems like a bubbly ball of education, ready to burst all over us. He has been teaching at Cornell for over forty years and has written twenty books. He is extremely energetic and makes you feel like you really would not mind listening to him for two or three hours straight. He explained how the class would be run and also how we should spend our time at Cornell: "Studies are showing that most Ivy League students will not flunk out, so try not to focus too hard on your studies. However, there is a rather large possibility that that student will not make any friends......so go make some friends, haha"

Of course this quote followed directly after his explanation of how demanding the course is, so it's not like this is going to be a walk in the park. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to my time here at Cornell and I am very excited to have already made so many new friends. As I said before, I will work as hard as I can to represent the WCCUSD, but I am definitely going to have some fun while I'm doing it. Ithaca is going to be an amazing environment for my studies and honestly, I am excited just to be here. Thank you again to the ILC leaders and our donors. This time will not go unappreciated.