Week 1: May 26th - June 1st
Sunday:
I was still in Georgia, concluding my break. Everyone should take three weeks just to relax after a semester. It's highly beneficial.
Monday:
I was all packed and ready to go bright and early in the morning (11am). There was some doubt as to whether or not my car would arrive in one piece, so my parents followed me up so I wouldn't be stranded somewhere between Atlanta and Raleigh. But my car performed wonderfully and dispelled any doubts we had. (It got about 29mpg and the transmission didn't slip even once... what a trooper.) We arrived around 5pm, and Laura met us at the house. Laura Bode is also involved in the mentoring program at NC State this summer (she's working with Dr. Annie Antón), and we are living together in a house off campus. My parents took us out to dinner and then left to go driving around NC (they decided to make it a mini-vacation). Laura forgot her key, so we went to the grocery store so I could buy bagels for breakfast. When someone with a key finally got back home, I just finished unpacking and rested. Driving all day is tiring, especially with no air conditioning.
Tuesday:
My first day at NC State. Laura had started her mentorship a week before me, so she took me to campus and led me to Laurie's office. (I had to battle with the guy in the visitor's booth because he refused to give me a visitor parking pass. I was not happy with him.) Laurie and I talked for awhile and then she showed me the old offices and introduced me to a whole slew of grad students. One of her students, Boby, was defending his Master's thesis that afternoon, so I went with Laurie to sit in. The whole process ended up taking about 2.5 hours (I was informed that that is unusually long)! After that, I went out to lunch with some grad students and then came back and watched a recorded presentation on the necessity of security in software engineering. Thus far, everyone I have met has been great. They're all very friendly (with the exception of the visitor's booth guy), and I'm really looking forward to working with them all.
That evening, I got in my car and just drove around so I could get an idea of where things are around here. I found a Chick-fil-a, Walmart, Harris Teeter, and a Whole Foods Market. I also managed to find every single bank ever established except for a Wachovia. But I have confidence that I'll find even that soon. After I bought groceries, I went off to meet Laura at Barnes & Noble.Wednesday:
Today was a moving day. Laurie and Annie moved their offices from the ERGC building to the new Venture III building. The offices are really nice; I'll have to put pictures up later. In the morning while they were moving, I ran around main campus getting an NC State ID and finding out about parking. They gave me a Faculty/Staff ID (mistakenly, because Laura's is a Visitor ID), and I've been gloating about it ever since. When I came back, Laurie took us all out to lunch and then we came back and started setting up the office. I left early so I could do some reading at home.
That afternoon, Laura went to the gym, and I did yoga. Then we made dinner that night, and I went off driving again. I don't really have any maps, though I have glanced at a few, so it's helpful for orientation purposes just to drive around. I found all sorts of fun stuff and then ended up sitting at Starbucks to do some reading (I know that's terribly commercial of me, but sometimes you need a little familiarity).Thursday:
Today was the first day everyone was established in the new office. The current occupants are: Nachi (Laurie's PhD student), Vinay (Laurie's Masters student), Thomas (Annie's PhD student), William (Annie's Masters student), and Laura and Me (the lowly undergraduates). In the morning, a group of us met with Laurie and discussed the reading from the night before. We're going to meet every thursday to discuss a chapter of the book Building Secure Software and every tuesday to read/discuss a paper on some security-related topic. I'm basically going to be doing research on integrating security into software built using the Extreme Programming (XP) methodology. So I get to read several books and familiarize myself with several different software programs. My computer was automatically shutting itself down after a minute, so William helped out getting everything functioning properly. I've never made a web page before, so I installed and played with DreamWeaver for a little while. I was tired so I went home early and took a nap (I love that). Laura ate dinner with Annie, so I found food on my own and then came back to the office and worked for a couple of hours on my web page (I love having keys to the office; I'm so much more productive at night). Then I went back home and talked to my roommates in Athens for a little bit (I love cell phones).
Friday:
I worked on my web page all day. I'm really enjoying working on it. I don't think I realized before how much fun it could be. Before I left, Annie and I talked about Atlanta for awhile (she went to school at Georgia Tech). I graciously forgave her for being an avid Tech sports fan (mainly because she's a huge Atlanta Braves fan as well, and who can help but love someone who has such good taste in professional baseball teams?).
That night we went to Laurie's house for a cookout. It was very enjoyable, and I got to meet her 3 children. (Laurie gets cool parent points for having a conversion van).Saturday:
I went shopping in the morning. Found Target, Old Navy, Best Buy, etc. I have finally located everything to make it feel like home, so now I have to start finding things to make it feel like Raleigh. Afterwards, I met Laura and her boyfriend at the pool. (I'm trying to get a tan so I'm not the palest bridesmaid at a friend's wedding in July... I was not very successful. I'm going to have to start being in the sun more I think). That night, we went to the $1.50 movie theater and saw Gosford Park. I didn't like it as much as I was hoping I would. Oh well.