6:20; Wake up, change alarm to 6:35

6:35; Wake up, take shower

6:57; Call Melissa Zehner to be sure she’s up. She’s muy tired-sounding. Aww.

7:00; Sit down and figure out what classes I have and where I’m going. Look for clothes and food.

7:20; Leave apartment - off to Chemistry 103.

I bought the lab manual for $15 just inside the Chem building, and met Melissa Zehner for a short minute. Then we went to our classes. Lots of students waiting outside the doors. Anyway, the doors opened, and the TAs came out and announced which sections were in which rooms…and sent home half a dozen students who woke for a 7:45 lab who didn’t have lab until next week. Poor them. Poor me!

We get inside, and basically start a test. Pretty simple, but still - nice way to begin my college career, eh? Once that’s over with, we partner up and work on the lab for the day. My partner was Phillip D. Short, wrestler from Brookfield East High School. The lab: measuring density of sugar solutions, and fun stuff like that.

Toward the end of the 3-hour lab, the TA, David, announces that the completed lab reports are due at the end of the period. Panic. We were basically half-done with the lab - so we rushed to finish, made up some data, and wrote a haphazard lab report. Oh well, it’s the first of many I guess.

Then, running way past the bell, I walked quickly to the math building, Van Vleck, accompanied by Phillip. Thanks Phil. I was a little bit late though… Anyway, Math 275 is going to be very hard I think. I need to pay very close attention and do all the homework for sure. Thankfully Fernando C sits two seats away from me and is a genius. I’ll probably need to ask him for help once in a while… or maybe more! ;-)

After math, Fernando walked me to Van Hise, the language building. That was nice of him. Hehe. He went to his dorm, and I went to Spanish. It was very Spanish. My teacher is from Madrid, and speaks with a little bit of an accent that makes it hard for me to hear some things… but it might just be my complete lack of Spanish knowledge… I really need to work on that! The class was entirely in Spanish, and I was lost more than once, but we got let out 15 minutes early, so it’s all good.

I then called Melissa to discuss Spanish, and other things. I had like a half hour until my chemistry lecture at 1:20. She told me that most of her math class didn’t show up, including the teacher. The few students that appeared waited about ten minutes and then just left. Wow. That’s a great class!

Chemistry. Big lecture, but the Professor is adorable! Silvia Cavagnero I think. She is from Italy, studied in Rome, earned her PhD in California, and has been at Madison for a few years. She speaks with a cute accent, and has all kinds of funny idiosyncrasies. For example, she adds an extra “upside-down-u” to her N’s and M’s - so the N’s look like M’s, and the M’s look like….long M’s with too many arches! The wrote the word “number” on the board, in cursive, so it looked like a whole bunch of stringy arches. I love it! She’s gonna be a great teacher, and I can’t wait to take more chemistry!

After chem, I went to the UW Bookstore to get my chem and Spanish books - more than $250, for two classes. And that doesn’t include the $80 Spanish book that I already bought! Oh my, books are expensive!! It makes me wanna go on a shopping spree, as long as I’m spending all this money… but I won’t - I can’t afford it.

I went to my apartment to catch up on things, and then departed at 4:50 for my roundtable discussion class connected to WISc, the Wisconsin International Scholars Program. That was fun. I underestimated the amount of time it takes to walk to Van Hise, and I was a few minutes late. It was all good though - I walked through the door saying “I’m sooo sorry” and was greeted by a “Charlie! You made it!” from Jolanda Taylor. We did some introductions, etc, and then at quarter to six, the class walked to Bascom Hall for pizza and to meet the older WISc scholars. That lasted about an hour, and then I went with a few new people I met to the Student Organization Fair.

I think I might join the Neuroscience Club. It’s about brains - everything from molecular stuff to behavioral stuff - meets twice a week for informal lectures from renowned UW professors. Free food. I want in.

Oh and we saw bellydancers too.