Week 1: Move In

For those of you who don't know, I have moved 6.5 hours away from my family to attend WWU to earn my master's in Anthropology. Are you insane, you ask? Yes, I think I just might be. It's gonna be an adventure for sure. My husband and kids have been very supportive and I love them dearly for it. I also really miss them. I will be going home over long weekends and vacations. 

I keep thinking about everything I did in my undergrad and how well I did even with all of the responsibility and distractions I had at home (please note: I love my distractions and wouldn't give them up for anything). But imagine what I can accomplish by being able to concentrate on just my schoolwork and research. No pressure, huh? 

That said, I am living on campus in a dorm that is predominantly (almost completely) undergrad. Eeek! My roommate is also a non-traditional student (read older, but not as old as I am) as is one of our suitemates. We also have two other suitemates who are young-ish. They are all undergrads. 

Our suite is in a complex that has twelve buildings housing a total of 650 students. There is a separate building that houses the cafeteria as well as recreation areas and a small store.

This is our dorm room. I bet it looked just like this in the 80s.

 This is the view out our dorm window. We are on the second floor. There is a courtyard out there with a fish pond and tons of flowers and trees. It's really beautiful. Unfortunately, our dorm room is directly above the campus daycare. I say unfortunately because it is also the first week many of the children who are attending daycare and some of them are upset to be away from their parents. By upset, I mean we can hear them sobbing-for hours. I am sure they will get used to daycare and stop crying, but for now, it's heartbreaking! 

 This is the entryway to our suite. (Sorry it's blurry.) Our door is straight ahead. We each have three keys for the dorms. One for the main/outside doors/laundry room, one for our suite door and one for our room door. My roommate and I painted our keys with nail polish so we can tell which key is which. 

 The sinks in our shared bathroom. Very dormish, no? There's no lock on the bathroom door, but there is a stall for the toilet. 

 This is the hall outside our suite. There are stairs at one end and stairs/an elevator at the other end. The laundry room is on the third floor. At first, we thought the laundry room was directly above our room because we thought we could hear the washer's spin cycle. Turns out it isn't the washer, it's our amorous upstairs neighbors who are shaking the building. 

 Pathways outside the dorm

Tunnel to campus 

 Campus Buildings 

Stairs up to the rest of campus. Our dorm is on the south end of campus. The building I attend classes in is about 0.4 miles from our dorm. It's a beautiful walk, but it rains a lot here. Galoshes are necessary.

 Red square where all the student activities happen

 View from Viking Union (the bookstore, dining etc. are in the Viking Union Buildings)

 Art-there is a ton of art and sculptures on campus

 View behind Viking Union 

 View from the dining room in Viking Union 

A bus pass is included in our tuition, so I am learning a new bus system. There are stores within two miles of campus. We are not far from downtown either. My roommate and I went to Fred Meyer on Friday on the bus. We discovered by accident the the bus does not run to that area after 5pm, so we had to hike to another bus stop. Fun times! I could drive my car, but I have a really good parking spot that I don't want to give up. 

My classes are going to be interesting. I have archaeology and theory.I also have a class called Graduate Essentials or something like that. It's supposed to keep me on track to graduate and help me with a timeline for my thesis. 

 I haven't come up with a thesis topic yet. That's scary because it's the first thing everyone asks after you introduce yourself. I have been doing some research on that today. So far I've been reading about human evolution and forensic and my favorite bone-the femur. My eyeballs are going to fall out.