the P.Pole v.2.1

I moved in on Monday morning and since then, everything has been more or less a big chain of things to do and orientation activities to get through. I met up with people from Victoria Park the first night and then yesterday, during the Double-Degree morning orientation tour of Laurier.

First off, Waterloo is not nearly as full of guys as everyone has been telling me. There are girls everywhere (except in Engineering) and on the first day, I could almost say for certain every other person if not three in five people was/were female. There are a lot of different people here. As for Chinese, yes, this place really is full of us, but many are China-Chinese (you know what I’m getting at) as opposed to American-Chinese (I’d count myself as in between if I could, but that’s cheating). There are also a surprisingly large number of white people from small towns and even places as far as BC and Nova Scotia here. Definitely not as many caucasians as Laurier, but they are sizeable. So far, I’ve only seen one African-American (…can’t we just say black?) person, and she’s in the Double Degree as well.

I’m staying at UW Place and that’s found right in the middle of the Waterloo campus and the Laurier campus (perfect for my classes, which will be at either one depending on the day). It’s also right across from a plaza with restaurants and stuff like Harvey’s (guess where I had dinner last night). The people here are pretty alright, and noise hasn’t been much of a problem here for the past two nights.

I am more or less now quite settled and unpacked, and I received my Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics Honorary Pink Tie of Greatness yesterday, after a day of “Earn Your Tie” initiations and the official tie-presenting ceremony. Yes, it’s a big deal.

So far, so good. I miss people back home, but there’s little I can do about that (other than having some chits and chats over IM whenever time allows, which actually goes a long way towards dispelling my blues). I’ve got an English proficiency exam later today, but I figure if I can spell, I should be fine.