Gearing Up for School

Wow...I finally have a minute to sit down and rest! The last few days have been completely busy and crazy and fun!

On Thursday I officially had my drama department convocation and met the rest of the incoming drama students. Can I just say how awesome the rest of my classmates are? We are all from such different backgrounds it has been fun talking to everyone and discovering what their backstories are (we have a musical theatre major from SINGAPORE).

After we met everyone, the senior representatives took all 65 new students into one of the upstairs rehearsal rooms where we started rehearsing our skit for the welcome picnic for the drama students. It involved learning the lyrics and choreography to parodies of 6 different songs and then performing them for the returning sophomores, juniors and seniors in the department. It was a lot of sweat, grumbling, and repeated attempts to keep the attention of 65 excited students but it turned out really well! The returning students LOVED us and cheered wildly after we finished the skit!

Following our performances, we had to hold up index cards that had been given to us prior to the performance that had our names on 1 side and an address on the other side. The address on our card was the address of our Big (just like in the Greek system---we were all considered Littles and our Bigs were watching us). Then a mob of 200 excited returning drama students literally rushed us running around trying to find the index card that had their address on it, and consequentially, their little. My Big Bridget found me right away and lots of jumping and cheering ensued. After everyone had found their Big and Little, the Littles were whisked away to their Big's homes, where they fed us, decorated our white t-shirts, and dressed us for the opening night Drama Party (aka Opening Marathon). I was also informed at that point I had another Big named Alex. They are AMAZING! I am already super close to them and we spent all night talking and getting to know each other!

Today has been a day to recover from all the orientation events and to prep for classes starting tomorrow. Hopefully classes will be fine! My agenda for this week is as follows:

Monday: Intro to Theatre Design and another Orientation Event

Tuesday: Intro to Theatre, Intro to Theatre Crafts, and Intro to Play Analysis

Wednesday: Intro to Stage Management, Intro to Theatre Design, and Theatre Lab

Thursday: Intro to Theatre, Intro to Theatre Crafts, Intro to Play Analysis, and an Orientation Event

Friday: Orientation Events all day

Saturday: Football game against Northwestern

Feel free to let me know if you would like my school address or anything else!

Much Love from Syracuse!

Weekend in NYC/Orientation to SU

I'M FINALLY IN NEW YORK!!! Even now it is hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that it has actually happened.

The first few days I actually got to spend in New York City with my grandpa, godmother, and great-grandmother. It was absolutely AMAZING! It was great getting to spend some time with family members that I haven't seen in awhile and explore a city I've always wanted to go to! While we were there (Saturday night-Tuesday morning) I got to see/explore the following things:

Statue of Liberty (from the plane---even more beautiful from above!)
Times Square (our hotel was in Times Square so I spent a lot of time there)
St. Patrick's Cathedral (we attended Mass there on Sunday morning)
Rockefeller Center (where we met some of Grandpa's friends for lunch)
Broadway Show 1 (Jersey Boys---amazing!)
Central Park (via horse drawn carriage)
5th Ave
Plaza Hotel
Broadway Show 2 (Mamma Mia---FINALLY!)
Penn Station (where we caught the Amtrak train that took me to Syracuse and the family back home)

So we left NYC on Tuesday and after an hour delay, I arrived in Syracuse at 10:45pm EST on Tuesday night, got to my motel, temporarily freaked out about being alone in a new city until my mom and friends (and the movie Bridesmaids) calmed me down enough to be able to sleep.

Wednesday morning I got up and was able to check into my dorm room at Syracuse! I'm on the 3rd floor of a building that has no elevator (and as accident prone as I am, I'm slightly concerned about this). Since my roommate was at the international student orientation all day, I spent the day unpacking, rearranging furniture, and meeting the few people who also checked in on Wednesday. Overall, it was a rather boring day.

Today (well technically yesterday since I'm writing this at 12:45am) was really fun! I spent the morning  wandering around the main part of campus (called North Campus) with my roommate and started to figure out where the important buildings were (my classes, bookstore, library, etc). By time we were done with that and back to our dorm, a whole bunch of other students had moved in so I spent a lot of time saying "Hi, I'm Cynthia. I'm a theatre major who lives down the hall!" That was fun. There is a really interesting mix of people on my floor. At 5 we had a floor-meeting where the RA explained all the rules and we went around and said our names and majors. Then we had like 30 minutes to just hangout before the next planned activity. In those 30 minutes, I discovered I live next door to a musical theatre major (!) and a girl down the hall who is a theatre minor is from SAN JOSE! Since we are the only people on our floor even remotely interested in theatre, the three of us clicked immediately. After just hanging out for a bit, we went to the Transfer Student BBQ, where we could eat and talk (which we did a lot of). Following that all the incoming students went to a program called "There's More to My Story" where student speakers talked about how they got to SU and gave us all advice on how to make the most of our years at SU. After that, there was an event called "Home to the Dome" where all the new students went to the football stadium (called the Carrier Dome) where we were taught all the various cheers and whatnot for the football games (Yes-I was in a football stadium by choice--imagine that). The most ironic moment of my life occurred there: the transfer students in the classes 2014 and 2015 made up the 6 in the 2016 class picture....obviously that was not thought through at all.

Then AFTER THAT, we all headed back to our dorms and there was a block party for the Skyhall 1 and 2 dorm buildings. Pizza and drink were provided as long as we agreed to talk to at least 3 people we hadn't met yet (obviously no problem for the 3 theatre geeks that we are!) It was a lot of fun to meet a bunch of other transfers and whatnot. 

Tomorrow I start all my drama orientation stuff/activities. I'll hopefully be able to update you before school starts about all that.

Much love from Syracuse!

2 Days to Go

Holy crap. I leave for Syracuse in 2 days. It just hit me today. I have already packed my bedding and other basic things I will need and shipped them to school so that they will be there when I arrive. My task of tomorrow is to wash all my clothes, sort them (what goes in the suitcases, what gets shipped and what gets donated) and pack as much as possible so that I can spend Friday saying goodbye to all the people I need to see. Hopefully I'll remember to get pics of my attempts at packing so you all can see how much stuff I have with me! Next post will be from NEW YORK!!!