Monday, July 8, 2013

Finally Here

Leaving D.C. was like a song going off in my head over and over again singing the lyrics delay delay delay. The process of leaving D.C was a horrible one, because we were held up three times for a total of ten hours in delay. The first delay came when we first arrived at the airport around 10:30 AM. This delay was because of the bad weather and the thunder storms in Charlotte, which was our first flight. Since the first flight would be delayed we would miss our second flight completely that would be taking us to Tennessee. We couldn't have that so the airport changed our flight to a direct one to Nashville set to take off at 3:20 PM. That wasn't the case though. A second delay happened just as we were getting ready to pull off the runway. It was a case of the bad weather. So we all got off the plane and were shuttled back to the airport for another two hours. The crazy part about this delay was that the Memphis, Tennessee flight was cancelled right after we got back in the airport. This caused the Vandy cohort to think the same about our Tennessee flight. 

We were wrong though. This time we all hurried on the plane as fast as we could while the skies were clear, but we just weren't fast enough. For the third time we were delayed, and this one would take another hour. For that hour in the plane I couldn't help but catch feelings for the beautiful historical D.C. secretly in the corner of my window seat. In my corner I just kept thinking that I'd be back one day whether, it is in a Georgetown uniform, Howard material, or just visiting but I declared it in mind that I would definitely be back one day. Well after I shook my deep thinking blank stare zone I realized that we were finally taking off.

After our take off and a long two hour nap we arrived in Nashville. After arriving in Nashville we got our bags, a rental car, and went on a quick trip to Target for some last minute items. By the time we got to the Vanderbilt campus it was around 10:15 PM and we had just enough time to set our beds, turn in our medicine, and meet our roommate a little before our 11:00 PM curfew. Which is why I'm including yesterdays news in today's blog .

After getting a full eight hours of sleep I woke up refreshed, but feeling stank because there was no time for showers last night. But in the morning I made sure I got cleaned up before meeting my dorm group to walk down for breakfast at 8:00 AM. When I got out the shower I realized that my room was huge! It was ruffle the size of a master bed room in a mansion, with three personal closets the size of a regular house's. The room also had an A/C as soon as you walked in which was perfect, and they organized the room to fit the location of the outlets and Ethernet cord spots. This was great considering that each person had two dressers and a desk. The room was originally set up for three people, but they only booked it for two.

After getting dressed I walked down five flights of stairs then about a block to get to the Commons witch is the food hall. We were served a buffet and were allowed to go to this game room, until they cleared us out on the front lawn so we could find our class. We recognized our classes by our teacher holding a paper with the courses name on it. After everyone in my course was gathered together we walked about a mile to get to our building, and then ran up eight flights of stairs to our class room. In my class room I saw all types of lasers and machinery. After finding my seat the teacher Mrs. Adams gave us a run down on what we would be doing for the next three weeks. Then she gave us the weirdest in class project I had ever had. The project was for my group and I to create some type of display that was 18 inches tall, with twenty-five 3x5 flash cards, and two feet of scotch tape for a teddy bear named Pokey. 

My Idea was to take the flash cards and make them into some kind of cylinder with a flash card in between each cylinder to make the display more stable. Then after twenty minutes of my group putting together my vision, "Because I'm bad with tape" the display was complete and the best in class. I'm not just saying that, I honestly mean it because out of the four groups only two groups made one up to par and this was the first group and my group. The other two fell down as soon as the bear touched it. Then the class voted whose display was the best and my group's won. After this we went to lunch and back to class where we were given lectures by two men. One's name was Andre Churchwell and he was a scientist and I thought of him as one of the smartest black men I have ever met for some of the things he discussed. We discussed the value of creativity or the right side of your brain, and then we talked the school part of your brain or the left side. But he basically said that creativity is key to being not just a great engineer, but the key to being a great innovator.  He also said that you can find creativity in relaxed situations and that's why so many scientist take lots of vacations, and why people typically get ideas in the shower. Then the second speaker basically said the same thing as the first man except his was less impressive and attention getting.

After class we went to the dorm building where we would get our elective class. My class happened to be step for the week. That was fun the teacher was definitely a drama king, and we perform on Friday. After that was dinner then a scavenger hunt around campus for about an hour or so until 8:00 PM. Then we got back we had free time and I got my shower out the way and was blogging and ready for my next day by curfew.

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