last-minute

I didn't realize it was gutsy to show up the night before orientation after traversing a six-hour time difference and sign the lease on your apartment an hour before the first mandatory meeting. But everybody else has been here for at least a week, if not several, and think I'm insane. Well, that's the first impression I generally aim for, so maybe this was all part of my grand plan.

The three-hour organizational meeting for ECMC blasted my self-confidence to smithereens, but one of the TAs had a word afterwards with me, reassuring me that everyone is only two hours ahead of their students during the first year. We're teaching labs during the first week of classes, and I'm sh%t scared. On the flip side, it's very possible that I'll be able to incorporate some carillon with tape into the 25th anniversary events. Sweetness and light.

They're insane, by the way, to expect us to come up with a faculty ALP recommendation in two weeks.

My apartment is more expensive than I expected, but somehow I'm here anyway, and I hope I can pay for it. If not, I'll just make up for it by not having a car and moving next year into a hovel. It's always possible to even these things out.

People are social here if you're social. I've met lots of new and a couple of vaguely familiar faces from America and abroad, I've two new flatmates who are very different from each other and whom I should get along with just fine, I've picked up a new sushi-making spelunking pre-med friend while waiting for chai at Java's (something that would rarely happen in stranger-shy Belgium), and... I'm still waiting to meet my teacher. A strange feeling to have no idea of what the professor you'll be working most closely with even looks like. So many people have come to study with specific teachers, and I've never met mine. Perhaps I'm naive. Perhaps I'm not far-sighted enough. Perhaps I'm dazzled by the Eastman name. Or maybe I'm brand-new to the instrument and humble enough to believe that anybody has a lot to teach me, so it doesn't really matter who I'm assigned to as long as I'm here.

"Don't study tonight. Studying for the theory placement test is like studying for a blood test. Get some sleep." If you're talking about the long run, there's truth to what the theory professor said, but as a voice DMA candidate quipped, "He underestimates our ability to cram."

It's time to cram.