August 15: Week 1

For the last 6 months or more, I’ve been talking San Francisco, thinking San Francisco, researching San Francisco and dreaming San Francisco, but none of those things can compare to actually living San Francisco. Officially, the adventures have begun.

For starters, dorm life has a lot of potential for fun and friends. GGH has four floors above the lobby; three for our rooms and the top floor for common areas (kitchen, lounge, etc). Each of the three inhabited floors has a theme: first floor is Pokemon, second is tea, third is pirates. I was lucky enough to be assigned to the tea floor (by far the most dignified). This means that the name tags on our doors are shaped like teacups, and all of the rule posters have pictures of the Queen underneath them. I share a room with a girl named Elizabeth, a vocal student from Pennsylvania. 

I have met quite a few people already. We had a floor meeting on the third night where the RAs went over the rules and gave us their contact info. Everyone had to tell the group their name, instrument and what kitchen utensil they would most like to be. I was going to say I would be a spatula, but that seemed too mainstream, so I said bundt pan. The kid next to me said window, which resulted in dead silence from everyone. Maybe, being from Chile, he didn’t understand the word “utensil”?? All the Asian kids were saying chopstick, until Jason (Dean of Student Life) told them they couldn’t all be chopsticks. 

Friday was apparently the birthday of a girl named Stephanie, and so she invited a whole lot of people to go to Off the Grid at Fort Mason. This is like a roving market, with lots of different stands and food from different countries. They congregate in a different spot each week. Fort Mason used to be an army base, and now it’s home to a lot of museums and businesses (even a music school).  Sort of like Currie Barracks in Calgary. I met several grad students, including the chap who won the composition competition last year and whose piece we will be performing at the first orchestra concert. 

It’s pretty exciting to be living on my own means, and to know that no one is making dinner for me anymore, and therefore if I don’t make it myself  I will starve. I thought at first that running thousands of miles away from home just to shop in another Safeway would be somewhat anticlimactic, but it’s still an adventure to do grocery runs myself. (Those of you who have been doing your own groceries for 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, stop laughing.) 

Advising and registration appointments are next week, so that’s when I’ll decide what classes to take. I auditioned for the baroque ensemble, and also placed straight into 2^nd year music theory and out of keyboard skills completely. There was a dictation exam as part of the musicianship placement test. I’d never done dictation before, and found it a real listening challenge, but fun as well. 

Tonight Elizabeth and I are going to a local choir concert, doing Brahms Deutsche Requiem. Before that, I still need to practice violin and find a cache, so I better not write anymore. Please let me know if you thought this entry was too long, or if there’s something I should have told about but didn’t.

-Antisocial Violinist