A Little About the Campus

First Thing's First

As I groggily walk to breakfast, the first sight I see is a man digging through the dumpster outside our dorm with a HUGE pitbull in a shopping cart.  It was sitting all nice and docile, but I literally have NEVER seen such a beast of an animal.  I kept staring, wondering if that's what I was really looking at.  Needless to say, this isn't exactly a secured campus.

Food: So the oranges here are not edible.  They look like oversized limes.  Some strange chemicals from the airforce days seeped into the ground, got sucked up through the roots, and caused the fruit to become radioactive.  Ok, maybe not radioactive, but definitely not edible. 

And edible things are important.  We are given a food allowance of $4.75 per day per person.  Hence, I am extremely pumped about the chocolate covered cranberries that Natalie sent me off with!  They have a special spot in my dresser.

Uniforms:

Pants and shorts that come up to my bellybutton - XS

Polos, long sleeves, sweatshirt - S

Coveralls - L ...yeah, they're sexy

I don't really understand how the different sizes work out...ranging from an XS to a L isn't something that typically happens for me. 

  

On Campus:

We are broken into temporary teams called pods. Ours is a group of 9 diverse individuals which I have openly and endearingly dubbed, "Pod Dysfunction." It took us twice as long as the others to fill out our immunization paperwork, get our uniforms fitted, and pee in a cup...actually it took our entire group two separate days to pee in a cup. Peeing under pressure apparently doesn't work for everyone no matter how many water bottles they down.

Night Life:
After finding the mechanical bull (that we didn't ride because the bar was completely dead, given that it was only 8pm), we wandered downtown. We took about 4 wrong turns within a block of where we wanted to be. We passed by a bunch of live music and social gatherings to go to the infamous Second Saturday Block Party. It was supposed to be a gathering of artists and musicians...It was one tiny street block with one band and some alcohol. We walked straight through it and found an upscale restaurant, Michel (Bistro~Bar~Brasserie), and grabbed a table outside. It's on the corner of 14th and O, and has one of the best servers, Marshall, who we think may have been the owner. Excellent Sangrias! As we were driving away, Kelsey shouts out, "Looks like Lil' Wayne just did a drug deal on a street corner." Followed by "Lil' Wayne" cheering and saying, "Come on over here, ladies!" We should really pay attention to when the car windows are rolled down. We eventually made our way back to Harvey's, a local dive bar filled with fellow members, and ended our night well.

The main intention of this pic was to get a pic
of the guy behind me in the sweet hat.

For today, our first day with any real free time, the four of us amigas wanted to venture to San Fransisco.  It's within the 100 mile radius we're allowed from base, but apparently we need to be back for dinner so it was a no go.  Major bummer.  In a few weeks we're taking a group trip to the Red Woods though, so that will be good.  Hopefully over spring break we'll have the time for the adventures we're trying to squeeze in.