Brunch of Champions

Today I woke up at 9 for once and am glad to say that I felt more refreshed than I have this entire trip. Shortly after a surprisingly warm shower, I headed over to the first brunch I’ve ever had, at least to my recollection. The food was okay at Robert Purcell Community Center, and there was a lot more variety than I would have expected at a college food hall. After finishing our brunch, most of the Freedom and Justicers and a few new friends we met at the ice cream social yesterday headed on a self-guided tour of a bit of North Campus to find our classes and just get a general feel for what little part of the campus we would have to go to. We found our class with relative ease, and the lecture hall’s sheer size was a bit daunting, but I still look forward to the class tomorrow.

We headed straight from our little tour to Statler Hall (not the hotel unfortunately) where we attended a studying crash course that lasted around three hours. I found the speaker very interesting, and she did a few little experiments/tests that really helped me learn about myself. One of these was a survey and packet that helped tell you what kind of learner you were, although I don’t know how well it worked for me, it was still quite fascinating.

We then walked over to the activities fair, where we signed up to see the midnight release of Harry Potter, which we almost missed because we immediately had to leave for a dinner with some Cornell admissions directors.

We ate at the John Thomas steakhouse, another restaurant that showed off Mr. Ramsey’s excellent taste, and I was luckily seated next to the Associate Admissions Director for Engineering, Jill Schaffer, as well as an engineering student named Ashley. Although I already was interested in Cornell heading into the dinner, I did have some reservations about the school. I had heard mostly good things about Cornell (my parents both went so they wouldn’t really let me hear bad things about the school) but I was unsure of whether or not I would be able to handle not being even remotely near a city. Ashley was very reassuring, and gave plenty of examples why even if a city were right next door, I probably would never even have the urge to go. Getting to talk with both a student and admissions director in the field that interests me most was a great experience, and what little doubts about Cornell have all faded away.

Sorry about not getting to go into too much detail about all the anecdotes I heard from both Jill and Ashley, but its midnight and I do have my first day of class tomorrow, so I’m going to have to get a bit of sleep, which just so happened to be the main point of the Study Skills Crash Course mentioned earlier.