Well, I finally made it. It's been an exciting few days. Here's the breakdown:

Day -2 (Friday)

I left work at noon, loaded all my stuff in the car, got some lunch, and after a mix-up by my dry cleaner's, had to drive back to downtown Cary to pick up my clothes that should have been ready that morning. So after all that, I finally got on the road at around 2:15. I drove pretty much without incident for 8.5 hours, making my way through some really beautiful mountains.

When I arrived in Athens, Ohio (my intended stop for the night), I was informed by the small, wiry and rude Indian owner of a Super 8 motel that it was graduation weekend for the Ohio University, and that rooms had been booked up since before the beginning of the year. So I drove another half-hour north to Logan, OH and stopped at an AmeriHost Inn and Suites where, fortunately, they had one room left. It was a double, and a little more than I had wanted to pay, but I was so exhausted that I didn't care. I trucked up to the room, made a quick call to my parents, and promptly fell asleep.

Day -1 (Saturday)

I woke up at 9:30 and got on the road around 10:15. I drove the rest of the way through Ohio and into Michigan, getting turned around only twice, finally arriving in East Lansing at 4:30. I checked in, hauled all my stuff up to my room (in four trips), then drove my car to the free lot down the road, and walked the twenty-minute trip back.

As I was bringing stuff up to my room, I would poke my head in people's doors or they would poke their heads in mine and we'd get introduced. At one point, five of us went on a Food Run to Meijer's, a chain store kind of like a Wal-Mart Supercenter. When we got back, just about everyone else was making plans to go out for dinner. So a big group of us (including our first-week teacher, Patricia C. Wrede) walked to Bell's Pizza, a Greek pizza joint down the road. And being Greek, they had (in addition to pizza and calzones) gyros, dolmades, and baklava. The Greek half of me was very happy. I'll definitely be going back there.

After we got back, it was decided we'd play our first game of Mafia. For those of you who don't know, Mafia is a game that includes cards, deduction, and deception. Most of the time, it is about who can lie the most convincingly. I was told before I came here by Kelly Link, Mike Jasper, and Andy Duncan that it is "the addictive time-suck from Hell," and boy, were they right. It's really fun. I went to bed at 1:00 AM.

Day 1 (Today)

Didn't do a whole lot. Rested some. Walked down to the Curious Book Shop, a really great used bookstore on the main drag, and yes, made a few purchases. I tried to get an ethernet cable from the Computing Center, but they were closed. Fortunately, my bathroom-sharing fellow Clarionite Mark had an extra. So I'm up and ready to rock.

We have a meeting in about twenty minutes to orient us to the program, so I'm going to beg off at this point. I am so happy to finally be here.