First Day of Class

Ok guys...sorry its been a while!

I know I didn't update on New York yet, but Im going to move forward and talk about our Orientation Day...otherwise I will forever feel behind and not update at all. Now thats just silly : )

Hokay so...

I have arrived in Syracuse and its BEAUTIFUL. All the buildings are old and gothic cathedral style.  Having an undergrad in architectural design, I couldn't be happier being surrounded by these buildings!

Moving on.

So Kia left on Sunday morning (so stinking sad without her) and I finally bought my mattress!! I was over charged and it was bullshit, but I was sleeping on a mattress topper for 4 days so I said to hell with it and handed over my debit card.

I then got to meet the LOVELY Lauren Smart (can I "@" that so it tags her?...still new to blogging) Any way, turns out we're a match made in heaven and she is perfect in every way, no homo.  So being good little Dallas girls (woooooo Dallas shout out!!) we got lunch....at Chipotle.  We realized that Chipotle, Jimmy Johns, Starbucks and the AWESOME bagel place are all 2 minutes from Newhouse. Even BETTER, JJs delivers....what up LATE NIGHT.  Alas, my wallet won't be happy...whats new?

So after yummy Chipotle, we went shopping because we both like to decorate and make out place feel homey...what does one think of for home goods? HOME GOODS!  <-- see what I did there...eh? eh?

Anyhow, so I bought this UH-MAZING Pillow...  its the LARGE one in the middle.  Its not a great picture, but it'll do for now.  P.S. Thats my bed and my MATTRESS...you cant see it, but let me tell you...that doesn't take away from how exciting it is.


I also got a few fake flowers and a lamp for my desk, which I built because I couldn't find anything I liked enough... pictures to come on that.

Basically Lauren and I bonded over our love of oversized pillows and realized that we should have wine nights where we sit on said pillows, drink, chat, watch movies and chill...so excited.

So she gets stuff, I get stuff, we bond. Its lovely, really. Then I get to Lauren's place and come up with 9868757576897968 projects to do.  I'm not sure when I think I am going to do these projects, but whatever...we were still excited about the ideas.

We then made dinner...bonded more and I decided I made a new life friend : ) Super happy with this one!


THEN!!!!!

Excited aren't you?

Try and contain yourself....

ok!

CAMILLE RETURNS FROM THE CITY!!!!  I was a little worried about moving in with girls I had never met before and now I know why...just kidding : )  This girl and I have 87 things in common....turns out shes life friend number 2 and what does one immediately think of in this situation?  LIFE FRIENDS SHOULD MEET!!! Annnnd so they do.  These two girls are going to be my life lines here and I couldn't be happier. : )

Now...On to today, my orientation!

I walk with Camille from our house (about 30 minute walk...so very similar to my walk at A&M). We meet Lauren and a few of her AJ girls ( Arts Journalism) at Starbucks, get our coffee and walk the two minutes to Newhouse.  Orientation consists of walking in, receiving a packet, getting your picture taken...or in my case, stubbing your toe to high hell in front of everyone...then attempting to hold it together for a picture.  Followed by getting a "free iPod Touch" and a Newhouse water bottle.  Lets just clarify...I'm paying how much to go here and they want to tell me this shit is "free"...really Syracuse?  Lets be real...

Then there are a few speakers, shout out to Chris Hamilton, entrepreneur genius who made a great speech.  Followed by a dumb trivia session, then we dismissed for lunch..which was actually pretty tasty!  Camille, Lauren (who actually bailed for the longest cookie break ever...) and I sat next to Joel Kaplan who is the Newhouse dean.  He was friendly and not as daunting as I thought...solid guy.

After lunch the 3 of us decided to get our student IDs.  OK so lets go over a quick camera lesson that anyone knows....photographer or not.  NO ONE LOOKS GOOD FROM A PICTURE TAKEN BELOW.  Example...my picture was taken from below eye level and I therefore have 2 chins on my ID, sa-weet. Not.

After ID failure, we went back to Newhouse for our program advising. For photography, we did a group orientation session and went over our websites, advertisitn, branding ourselves, color options, etc.  So more on that to come! Very interesting.  I have some cool friends in my program, Brian Brister, Peter Caty and Kristina Subsara. All so cute, super sweet people. Yay photo friends!

So Peter, Kristina and I all have similar goals in the photojournalism world...wanting to do news media story telling and travel everywhere.  Solid people.

So after a long chat outside of Newhouse with good people, I meet up with Camille and we walk home.

My day ends with Camille taking me to the gym, KICKING MY ASS, then us going to the store, buying AMAZING groceries, cooking dinner, assembling my bed/mattress and cleaning up around the house!

Now I am blogging to you lovely people :)  Sorry if this was long, but there are some people reading who I don't ever get to see and they want lots of details (shout out to LK!!)...the rest of you?

Deal with it.

Love you all! Miss you all!

Peace, Love and Photos

R