Of Houston, Rice, and life in general
Of Houston:
I love my new apartment. The pics of it are posted on both myspace and facebook so check them out for any details. If you don't remember or know my info for those shoot me a mail and I'll get them to you. :D
Houston is really different but I'm adjusting just fine. The areas I drive around don't seem to be too different from Waco, maybe a bit more traffic, but not a lot. :D I've found some really good grocery stores and there are some more fun shopping options not too far away at all. The best thing I've found is my church and I really think that it's going to work out great. I'm going there with a guy that I grew up with back home who has also just moved to Houston to start law school. Which is pretty cool. It's also nice to see a familiar face at the end of a long week. This was my first full week in Houston, or at least it will be as of tomorrow afternoon. It's been pretty good. I've gotten things set up and taken care of and enjoyed doing nothing. I think that'll be over as of Monday. Which works as a fairly good segue into what I've done at Rice this last week.
Of Rice:
So I have now officially been oriented in as a Rice graduate student. They served beer at the first orientation. The GSA and the official grad pub cosponsored it. They also hosted a happy hour at a local bar that I didn't go to. It was a fun day though. Met some cool folks thought. Not sure if I'll see much of any of them since most were sciences people. Oh yeah and I learned that the most important thing for a teaching assistant to remember is that one should not sleep with the students in the class that one is teaching. How's that for morality? How sad that it has to be mentioned as if it wasn't obvious. Anyways, one of the sciencey guys and I kept cracking jokes about it afterwards. It at least enlivened what was a very long, boring, and repetitive orientation meeting.
Todays orientation was a bit more to the point. We met all the important folks around the music school and got advised. It was fun as I had a joint advising session with the other musicology grad student. I'm taking German 101 (for grad students) worth 5 credit hours: Music Bibliography and Research Methods, worth 3 credit hours; Opera on Film, worth 3 credit hours; Folklorism in 19th Century music, worth 3 credit hours; and choir, worth 1 credit hour. All told that equals 15 credits that I'm taking this semester. Plus I'm a TA for the undergrad musical survey course on Baroque and Early Classical Music. I have to go to the class, keep up on the material covered, and lead a once weekly discussion session as well as assist in grading duties. In addition I'll be writing some of the program notes for this semester. So, I think I'll stay fairly busy, still, I don't have to practice anymore so it should be good.
Of Life in general:
I miss all of my friends. It's pretty much on the level with what I thought it'd be but that doesn't make it any easier. It's never easy to leave the people you love behind. And then knowing that they're all still seeing each other and hanging out is hard too. But, I'm meeting new people and that is exciting. Getting reaquainted with old friends from back home has been nice too.
Germany is still on the board though we're waiting to hear back from the prof who went over there. And waiting to find out if we have to turn papers in in German for classes. Cause I don't think I'll be able to achieve that level of fluency in six months or less. Still, I'll keep updating on what it's looking like. And I'm going to be very dedicated to my lessons. :D
Miss you all bunches and bunches. :D
I love my new apartment. The pics of it are posted on both myspace and facebook so check them out for any details. If you don't remember or know my info for those shoot me a mail and I'll get them to you. :D
Houston is really different but I'm adjusting just fine. The areas I drive around don't seem to be too different from Waco, maybe a bit more traffic, but not a lot. :D I've found some really good grocery stores and there are some more fun shopping options not too far away at all. The best thing I've found is my church and I really think that it's going to work out great. I'm going there with a guy that I grew up with back home who has also just moved to Houston to start law school. Which is pretty cool. It's also nice to see a familiar face at the end of a long week. This was my first full week in Houston, or at least it will be as of tomorrow afternoon. It's been pretty good. I've gotten things set up and taken care of and enjoyed doing nothing. I think that'll be over as of Monday. Which works as a fairly good segue into what I've done at Rice this last week.
Of Rice:
So I have now officially been oriented in as a Rice graduate student. They served beer at the first orientation. The GSA and the official grad pub cosponsored it. They also hosted a happy hour at a local bar that I didn't go to. It was a fun day though. Met some cool folks thought. Not sure if I'll see much of any of them since most were sciences people. Oh yeah and I learned that the most important thing for a teaching assistant to remember is that one should not sleep with the students in the class that one is teaching. How's that for morality? How sad that it has to be mentioned as if it wasn't obvious. Anyways, one of the sciencey guys and I kept cracking jokes about it afterwards. It at least enlivened what was a very long, boring, and repetitive orientation meeting.
Todays orientation was a bit more to the point. We met all the important folks around the music school and got advised. It was fun as I had a joint advising session with the other musicology grad student. I'm taking German 101 (for grad students) worth 5 credit hours: Music Bibliography and Research Methods, worth 3 credit hours; Opera on Film, worth 3 credit hours; Folklorism in 19th Century music, worth 3 credit hours; and choir, worth 1 credit hour. All told that equals 15 credits that I'm taking this semester. Plus I'm a TA for the undergrad musical survey course on Baroque and Early Classical Music. I have to go to the class, keep up on the material covered, and lead a once weekly discussion session as well as assist in grading duties. In addition I'll be writing some of the program notes for this semester. So, I think I'll stay fairly busy, still, I don't have to practice anymore so it should be good.
Of Life in general:
I miss all of my friends. It's pretty much on the level with what I thought it'd be but that doesn't make it any easier. It's never easy to leave the people you love behind. And then knowing that they're all still seeing each other and hanging out is hard too. But, I'm meeting new people and that is exciting. Getting reaquainted with old friends from back home has been nice too.
Germany is still on the board though we're waiting to hear back from the prof who went over there. And waiting to find out if we have to turn papers in in German for classes. Cause I don't think I'll be able to achieve that level of fluency in six months or less. Still, I'll keep updating on what it's looking like. And I'm going to be very dedicated to my lessons. :D
Miss you all bunches and bunches. :D