August 27, 2014 - First Day of Classes. 9:08 AM

This morning has been really good. I got up early - it was a little harder dragging my bones out of bed this morning, and then I went and grabbed a quick breakfast, and then hit up the gym.  The breakfasts, I assume, will be the same from now until eternity, which I'm just sort of resigning myself to.  The Austrian hard rolls with cold cuts are already starting to get tiresome and it's only day three of me eating them.

The fitness room downstairs was empty when I got there, presumably because I don't have class until 10:20 and everyone else started at 8:40 pretty much.  There's some weights and a wide open space for some cardio.  None of the cardio machines are running, but I figure Clare and I will go take a walk down in Gaming later today since I have my clothes now.  Yesterday I wasn't decent to go outside the room, but today I think I'll invite her to go adventuring with me and I'm super stoked.

So about the philosophy classes.  The amount of textbooks we have is absurd.  I have two hardbound volumes of Plato and Aristotle, I have Descartes and Bonaventure and some dude named Crosby who and all of them decided to be hugely prolific.

Want to know the weird thing?  I am positively thrilled to get to read these books.  I want to curl up and dig my mind into something meaty like that and think about things and ponder and get smarter.  I'm not sure how reading about the essence of humanity makes me feel smarter, but it does.

Maybe it'll help my understanding of people and then I'll get better at writing.  We can only hope.  I feel like after today my life will ascend into a hectic busyness that I'll struggle to contain.  I'm still trying to keep up my record of writing 500 words per day on story (I don't count the few days of travel I had to Austria and saying goodbye day), I want to read all these books, I want to draw and write and explore and hike.

What does help is that the timezones are different so it's helping me detach from my phone, I don't have to worry about updating people unless it's early morning or late night when I'm not usually doing anything anyways.  Back home it's midnight and everyone's just hitting the hay while I get going and reflect a little in the morning and work out.

There's a prayer up on the gym wall that I really appreciate - it's not really a prayer but a sort of reminder to the Christian soul of why we're here and the opportunities we have in life to be truly alive. I don't have it memorized right now but hopefully by the end of the semester if I say it every day during my workout, I'll have it in my brain.  I really liked it.

Anyway I think I'll do some reading or walking around before class.  I'm not sure where my schedule went and so I've been borrowing Clare's when she's got it sitting on her desk, so hopefully I'll just magically find where I'm supposed to go.  (I suspect I lost my schedule when I got frantic about my suitcase yesterday and went charging off to find Mr. Pipp following a meeting.)

So far I've actually talked to a couple of people following my being here.  I haven't wanted to because I've been dirty and wearing the same clothes and gross, but since I got my suitcase last night I feel a lot better and more ready to interact with humanity (so I'm a little self conscious about how I smell; aren't you?).

Rooming with Clare and Monika: Monika is really quiet and we've asked her how much she understands of us talking.  The answer is "Just a little".  We know that she has a brother and a boyfriend and that she's pretty good at making friends despite being quiet.  We've gotten to know a couple of her exchange student friends, like I said yesterday.

Clare is a lot more energetic than I am, I think, because she's always up and moving around or doing something or saying something.  I think I'm okay at doing stuff continuously but it's harder for me to talk and do things at the same time; I'm not quite so good at multitasking. Which is fine, because as long as I'm paying attention to what she's saying while doing whatever else I'm doing, then I'm not missing anything.

Ugh, I just want to go to class. I think I'm going to go explore the Kartause and take some pictures.  Updates to follow.

It'll probably be easier to write down my thoughts about each day here rather than write them by hand.  I'm starting to figure out I don't think I'll have much time, so later when I come back I'll maybe take a look at this blog and then copy it into a Word document and print it out and put it in a notebook for later rather than trying to update this here and then also keep a written journal.