Week One Wrap Up

It's the end of my first week at the CIA, and I'm already starting to feel at home here. I know my way around campus and even around the (tiny) town of St. Helena, I'm no longer nervous to go into the classroom or the teaching kitchen, and I've been making some great friends.

I love my roommate, Natalie. She's a 22-year-old baking and pastry student from Orange County who wants to be a cake decorator after graduation. She and I have so much in common, from our swim team/water polo backgrounds to our taste in music to our mutual love of anything Disney. I actually feel really lucky that the housing department ignored my application for a single room, because I feel like if I had been living on my own this week I would have been kind of lonely. The dorms here are pretty quiet and we're not allowed to keep our doors propped open, so it can be hard to meet people. Once our class was allowed in the kitchen on Thursday we were all able to make friends with each other, but before that everyone was leading their own isolated lives. I feel like my transition would have been much harder without a buddy.

Aside from Natalie, I've also become friends with some other girls in my program, like Kerianne, Katie, Shandelle, Clarissa, and Melinda. A couple of us are going shopping in town tonight to celebrate surviving the first week. And then tomorrow is the CIA Winter Semiformal, so we're all getting dressed up and going together. It'll be nice to get a taste of the CIA social life.

I'm also looking forward to some campus events coming up in the next two weeks, like the Wine and Cheese Club meeting, the new student welcome party at a brewery in town, and the CIA Christmas Open House. I can't believe I'll be coming home for the holidays in two weeks. It feels like time is flying here already.