Orientation: Complete.

Our final day of Orientation was today, and I'm so glad that it is over.

It's not that Orientation is necessarily bad, it's just a really looooong process; don't get me wrong--I'm really excited for Davidson--but Orientation is... long.

Today, I didn't have any appointments before the afternoon, so I was able to sleep in this morning, which was wonderful if I may say so myself. I woke at about 9:30 and showered, hung out in my dorm and played some guitar.

I gathered a group of my hallmates for brunch at commons and we went down there for one of the tastiest meals yet. I suppose that yogurt with granola doesn't really constitute much of a menu option, but the meal was so tasty. After lunch, more hanging out took place before a long speech at 2:00 on the topic of the summer reading book of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, by Davidson dad Neil White. After the speech, we all filed out and towards our reading discussion groups. My group met with Professor Smith, an Economics teacher and baseball coach, on the third floor of Chambers. The discussion was nice, though it did seem that I was the only person in the room with my particular sentiment on the book. I hope that I didn't offend anyone at the discussion, as everyone there is really cool and I get in a serious mode when I'm arguing a point--even if the point is whether or not cologne is a significant part of a book.

After the discussion, another rallying of the troops took place, but this time for an attack on the poster sale in the Union. I found like 17 posters that I loved, but narrowed it down to five to keep costs down. I ended up with LOST, Dexter, Fight Club, Black Swan, and Big Bang Theory posters, of which I am very pleased. I set the posters up and continued reading more of the Humanities reading, The Epic of Gilgamesh.




After a 15 minute respite, we, as a hall, went to Commons for dinner. The dinner was tasty. At the end of dinner, I ended up in a semi-political debate on which Republican nominees even have a chance of getting the nomination this year. Nathan, Dan, Alex, Colin, and others joined in the debate, and it was cool.

We then got dressed up in suits and ties for the signing of the Honor Code. We took a quick picture on the steps of Chambers, and looked really legit. I was wearing my grey suit with a pink tie, and definitely looked pretty sweet, if I may say so myself. We listened to a member of the Honor Council talk about the code for a while, which was a lot of fun, even if I was the one found with everclear, without a bike, cheating on a test, lying about stealing a Snickers bar, and many other transgressions against the Honor Code.

We then went to Duke Performance Hall and listened to Prof. Epes talk about the Honor Code and plagiarism. I really hope I have him next year, as that would be really cool. We then signed our names, and I felt really excited to finally be a part of Davidson for real now. It was very exciting.

I returned to the dorm to finish my reading of The Epic of Gilgamesh, to find that the introduction to the edition is half of the entire book, and has many digressions in the writing. It was very confusing to read, but I ended up getting through it at last.

I'm very excited for classes tomorrow, even though my first class is an 8:30 am class. The fact that it is an economics class makes it okay, as I have decided.

Have a wonderful day!

Hello Worl--err, Davidson!

First blog posts are always awkward, so I think I'll just skip the whole "THISISMYFIRSTBLOGPOSTOMG" mindset (as this is in no way my first blog), and move forward to the "I'm comfortable leaving out many exclamation marks from my posts" phase.

But first, here's the premise of the blog, and a quick introduction, too:

My name is Hampton, and I am a new freshman at Davidson College in North Carolina, USA. At this point, my intended majors include philosophy, political science, economics, psychology, sociology, or fifty other possibilities. No matter what I study, I will probably be making my own major to suit myself for law or government or something interesting like that.

I will be graduating in 2015 from Davidson, and currently plan on attending law school or some sort of graduate school. I hope to be on the mock congress, mock trial, improv, theatre, student government, and eco rep groups while at Davidson, but I know I can't do all of those each year. (I will probably end up doing a couple of them, with congress and eco rep groups definitely thrown in there.)

I'm not particularly athletic, but I am signed up for a weight-lifting course and will participate in the freshman sport of flickerball for an additional PE credit. Currently, I am enrolled in the 2-year Humanities program, Metaphysics, Introductory Economics, and Applied Ethics classes, with some pretty cool teachers that I'm really excited to learn from.

My roommate is named Andy, and he seems really cool. I hope we get along for this year, as I hope to be in Davidson's sustainable living house, the EcoHouse for the final three years of Davidson, if I don't get an apartment or something by the time I graduate.

Alright. First post incoming--


Today was really busy, and I'm definitely ready to finish with Orientation. Today, we did a service walk, which is essentially a tour of the town of Davidson. It was really neat, and I met a lot of cool people, but I was dying of heat and sweated so badly. After that, we had a delicious lunch (sponsored by the always awesome Harris Teeter) of beans and rice with a piece of cornbread.

I went to the Sprinkle Room and bought all of my books after that. I ended up with fifteen books and one class manual, at a grand total of $608. All of my books but 2 were used, too, which makes the price even more ridiculous. I will probably be writing all over the books, so I don't really know how many I will be selling back at the end of the year and how many I will be adding to my extremely small collection of books.

After lugging my books back, I got back to the room, showered, and met with Aric, Ellie, and Hannah for a Harris Teeter run. We enjoyed it thoroughly, and I got some hummus and pita chips. I rode on the kiddie ride at the outside, as did Aric. We made a stop at this natural foods place, and I got some almond milk and Ezekiel bread (which is the best thing ever).

Next, we went back to the Union (Hannah left to see the soccer game) and I bought a lanyard to hold my CatCard, room key, and postbox key. Returned to the dorm, and talked to Caroline on the phone for an hour fifteen.

After the rest, I went down to Vail Commons with Ian, Hannah, Ellie, Nathan, Alex and others to eat some Caribbean marinara-sauced pasta (it was called "rasta pasta" by the food crew) and french fries. (Yes, I decided it was time to french fry it up--don't judge me!) We all finished and Dave, Ben, and I all walked back to the dorm together, stopping to watch another kid named Ben show us some sweet dance moves.

I returned to the dorm, looked up the Chidsey Leadership Fellows application, and attempted to download Microsoft Office Suite from my Davidson thumbdrive. Unfortunately, that has failed to work, and I'll have to get IT to get that done for me sometime this week.

Now, I'm about to read the first part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, as I have to read the first 44 pages for Humanities by Monday at 8:30.

Happy trails!