So I'm in Princeton now. The flight here was miraculously without incident apart from a slight delay, and I even managed to get some sleep on the flight. These past couple of days, I have mostly been sitting through the international students' orientation where they talk us through the red tape and bureaucracy that we have to wade through, followed by actually carrying out these out. All this was necessary, but hardly inspiring.

My room is slightly small and I have to share one shower cubicle with 7 other people on my floor, which made me suspect that whoever designed the place figured that grad students don't shower. However, I do have the room to myself, and I have also been busy trying to get my hands on the things needed to make the place habitable.

Apart from that, I've been meeting a lot of the other graduate students, most of them international students since we all arrived early, but the American students are beginning to arrive as well. So far it's difficult to see with whom I will have lasting friendships and whom will become 'hi, bye' acquaintances, but only time will tell.

In the meantime, the graduate students in my department appear to have a work ethic that is intimidating (several of them were seen sporting T-shirts saying 'Sleep is for the weak'), but they do seem to be enjoying what they do immensely.

In the mean time, I still have a lot of personal stuff to sort out, but within a week I'll be working my socks off as well.