August 24

So I've started a new naming system. As you might have noticed I haven't posted in a few days. That would be because nothing happened on those days: watching TV all day and eating in didn't seem worth writing about. So now I'm going to date the posts, that way I can just skip over the boring days- though with today being the first day of classes I don't know how many more of those there will be. ;)

Now on to today's business:

The first day of classes. Though I suppose I should just say "class" as I only have one a day. Monday is "Statistical Foundations for Analytics". Taught by Dr. Javad, who just completed his doctorate this summer. I've talked to him outside of class a few times, he's a nice guy. The class had an entirely different dynamic from the programming boot camp, but to be fair this class is just us MSA students and for some unknown/unexpected reason we all just clicked together right from the start. Anyway first day of graduate class was basically the same as a first day of undergraduate class: we went over the syllabus and expected outcomes and then had an introductory lecture. Today's boiled down to "this is what statistics is and what you can do with it".

Now here's the "cool" part (though I think I've told you this before): because we're a cohort program and we have evening classes, we have access to the lounge on the twelfth floor where they provide us with catered dinners.

Monday is bbq'd chicken and potato salad. It wasn't the best, but it was good. There's quite a lack of seating though. I sat with Amanda and a couple other girls (we all went upstairs together after class ended). And then when the crowd thinned out we went over and joined the loud group from our class, which not surprisingly included Mari, Taj, Jennifer, and Myanka- the four most talkative students in our group. We talked and laughed for quite some time and made tentative plans to go out together over the weekend. 

That's all there is to report today so I'll finish with a picture of the view from the twelfth floor:

(Coming from the mountainous Washington, that flat horizon is a little strange.)