New beginnings

Hello Durham. It's good to finally be here after all the built up anticipation of the last several months. It still hasn't quite sunk in that this is my new home. This is the place where I will be for the next 2 years. I've visited the Raleigh/Durham area several times over the last few years and it's always been a lot of fun. Two of my closest friends live in this area so the move hasn't been as bad as when I moved from California to Florida and didn't know a soul there. Of course the down side is that I've spent the last 4 days partying with these friends and haven't done anything as far as settling down is concerned. Well, that's not true. I did unload my car and I did get some shopping done and I did set up stuff like my cable and power etc in my apartment (which I absolutely love!). But I've made no headway in terms of finding furniture.

Stopped by Fuqua yesterday to take care of some paperwork. This was my third time at Duke and I still hadn't explored the campus so I figured this would be a nice time to walk around. It's beautiful!

So the actual city. I think it'll take me some getting used to in terms of the way it's laid out and the number of people. It just seems a lot more spread out and less populated compared to the cities that I have lived in. There aren't as many clubs/restaurants/malls as I'm used to. I obviously knew that before getting here but it just sinks in a little more once you actually experience it.

The good thing is that there are tons of younger people around. I loved Florida. I did. But there really ARE a lot of older people out there and it's not always easy to meet people you'd want to hang out with. In the 4 days I've been in Durham/Chapel Hill, I've already hung out with people from France, New Zealand and Hungary, besides the US and India. These were students from the three major universities in the area (Duke, UNC and NCSU) , so I guess what I'm trying to say is that this might not be the best of places in terms of things to do, but it's still a fun place.

It's a shame that my friend C is leaving in two weeks. Would have been awesome to live in the same city as her after all these years. We've had some fun times together. Guess I'll just have to make the most of the time I have.

I still haven't started on the huge pile of reading I'm supposed to get done before the healthcare "bootcamp" on the 6th. There's just one word to describe the stuff they've unloaded on me. It starts with a B. It's got to be done though. I think I'm going to head to the Bostock library after my meeting with the fianancial aid assistant director and get some reading done.

ps: my post titles just keep getting cheesier.

The last week

This is it. My final 7 days in Florida. Exactly a week from today, I start a new phase in my life. A new city. New friends and new experiences. I'm really excited. The last three and a half years in Florida have been awesome but I think I'm definitely ready to move on.

I had all these plans for a crazy last weekend in Florida. Don't know if that's gonna happen anymore. Have been down with the flu (?) the last couple of days and haven't been able to get out of bed. Sucks.

The preparation for the move has been coming along fine. Finally found a roommate. In fact I found quite a few people who were interested in sharing the apartment. The prospective roommates included a couple of really cute girls too! Unfortunately I had already said yes to this guy so I couldn't live out the fantasy of every straight guy: hot female roommate! Don't judge me.
Although I'm not entirely sure why the idea of a female roommate holds such a fascination for us guys. It's not like we'll be standing in the living room baking pizza and suddenly some chik-boom-chik-boom music will start in the background, like you've seen in every porn flick ever made......you know what I'm talking about, and we'll start doing it right there. So what's the deal? I dunno. It's a guy thing I guess.
Anyway, all that is completely irrelavent since contrary to what all my friends recommended I did not ditch my roommate and said no to the two girls.

Also sent out my request for a 'change of status' to the international office at Duke. I'm cutting it a little close since I've put down my last date at work as the 19th and the INS needs to get my documents before that. Hopefully it'll turn out fine. (A small plug for my school. The kind of assistance I have recieved from the folks in the international office and in fact all the departments at Duke/Fuqua has been absolutely amazing. )

In other Fuqua news, I received my Health Sector Management "bootcamp" course pack today. When the UPS guy came in with that big ass packet, I thought the health care program had probably sent me a bag full of gifts and maybe some reading material. I was expecting...I dunno...a shirt? a bag? a mug? HA! Was I mistaken! They sent me a 5 inch thick pile of sheets to read. Double sided. Before the 5th. And this is apart from the Accounting and Math CDs that I am supposed to go through. WTF! Whatever happened to the "enjoy your summer, don't worry about B school at all right now" advice that everyone and their aunt seemed to be giving me! Ok fine. No one said B school was going to be easy.