'First' Day at Queen's

Today was my 'first' day of school. It's frosh week, so there was lots of hoopla and general craziness going on. The freshmen were split into groups and each had its own quirks. One group dressed in blue and had whistles. Another dressed in maroon with maroon and yellow long socks. One other dressed in old roman garb and painted themseves with white paint. Another group wore scottish kilts. Just like in any other frosh week, the new incoming students were loud and seemed to enjoy themselves. Their frosh leaders were louder and more boisterous ... I suspect drunks and alcohol were involved early in the morning. The group in blue used their whistles to help their group mates and other folks cross the street. The group in maroon had their leaders shouting and going bananas in an attempt to simulate aa boot camp. Those in roman garb paraded around campus as did those in kilts. There was also a mini parade where all the freshmen lined up with odd signs they carried around which had on each of them written the names of the various groups. These group names were generally quirky and humorous. They were so quirky and humorous that I can only remember one of them, which was 'Home Depot'. When the parade came, the marching band was playing 'In the Jungle', one of the themes in the Lion King.

As an incoming grad student, we had none of that. I registered and picked up my Queen's ID card first thing in the morning. Anna, the girl I met a few days ago when I went to meet with the grad coordinator was there. After that I proceedd to the Rideau building to get a parking permit. Unfortunately, all permits have been taken and there's a waiting list of clsoe to 200 people. That was a bummer. I then went to Canadian tire to buy some bike accessories: a pouch, a bike stand and a bike lock. After that I went home then at noon went to a welcoming lunch for us grad economics students. I was expecting some good grub, but they only served pizza which sucked. As I ain't naturally good nor comfortable in these meet and greet settings, I stood eating my pizza at the cornder of the long table for a few minutes before I struck a conversation with this dude, Leo, who took his undergrad from Carleton. As expected, it was generally a casual talk type of thing. I also met a prof Greg Smith who I might have as a prof next term. Leo and I also got our keys to our TA offices. During the lunch I also met Nelson, Mark, Tom and Sonya. After about an hour, I left cuz it was becoming pretty boring. I had lunch at home then at 3:00 went back to the campus to attend a Graduate Methods Review course. After the intro by the teacher, she handed out intro tests for us to answer. That test was freakin annoying. It had stuff on Algebra, Calculus, Probability, and Optimization. Since I had forgotten more than half of the stuff in that test, I totally bombed it. Good thing it doesn't count for anything. And that was the ned of my first day. Tomorrow will probably be another pretty busy day.