Greetings From SC!

Hey y'all!  Sorry I've been MIA these last couple weeks, but now that I'm pretty much settled in here at Clemson, I should be back to posting on a more regular basis.  Now, I know I said I wasn't going to use this blog as a diary of my life, but I figured I owe it to my readers, after not posting in quite a while, to let them know that I made it down here in one piece, though I was kinda out of it after surviving the 10-hour overnight drive to get down here from Pennsylvania.  I've got a pretty nice apartment on campus - kinda small, but it suits me just fine (despite the occasional appearance of bugs, though it's not been as frequent these days now that I've sprayed around the place), and my roommate is a pretty chill guy.  I've made a lot of new friends within the math department, and we hang out quite a bit.  I'm taking three classes - Abstract Algebra, Math Programming, and Probability - and they seem all right so far, though it's only been three school days into the semester, so it's a little too soon to tell.  I'm also teaching two recitation sections of Precalculus as a teaching assistant, and though I'm not looking forward to the 7 a.m. TA meetings every Monday morning, I'm really excited for my first classes on Tuesday.  I bought a season ticket for football last week, and like everyone else down here, I'm pumped for that as well, especially since we didn't have a football team at Loyola.  The only complaint I have is the humidity, which makes the commute to class rather uncomfortable.  I'm so glad my parents bought me a bike when I got here, because it makes getting around so much easier.  All in all, I think I'm doing pretty well here at Clemson, and I'm looking forward to what I'm sure is going to be an awesome first year of grad school! 

Stay frosty, y'all!  B-)

2 Days To Go!

Those of you who know me well enough will know that I'm only a morning person if you're talking about 1 in the morning, and when I can, I avoid real mornings altogether.  This summer has been no exception.  I've been staying up as late as 4:30 some nights, and I usually haven't been getting up until about 1:30 in the afternoon.  But now that the start of grad school is creeping ever so nearer, my mom keeps insisting that I try to readjust my sleeping schedule by going to bed earlier and getting up earlier.  I've given in a little this week and started setting my alarm for 12 rather than 1, but I don't see the point of trying to adjust right now.  Reason being, I'm leaving for Clemson on Friday night, and it's an eleven-hour drive, which my dad, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to do overnight, even though he's one of those people who goes to bed early and gets up early.  So any attempt to fix my sleeping schedule is most likely going to be thrown completely out of whack by this overnight road trip.  You're probably asking why I can't just sleep in the car.  Well, I've found that, no matter how hard I try, I just can't.  I can fall asleep virtually anywhere else, but in a moving vehicle, I can only sleep sporadically. 

I'm also kinda p.o.'d that my parents won't let me do any of the driving, even though I'm more used to being up late than either of them are.  Their excuse is that I don't know the way there and I don't have enough experience driving on the Interstate.  Number one, none of us have driven to Clemson before, so we're all in the same boat here.  Number two, I may not have driven a car in quite a while, but you never really forget how to drive.  Number three, I'm going to have to learn to drive on the Interstate sooner or later, so better now while my parents are still there to guide me than trying to learn on my own later. 

But, there's just no convincing them.  Where else did I get my stubbornness from?  Oh, well, just thought I'd vent a little here and get it out of my system.  Peace out, world! 

B-)