First of all, I know I’m kind of late and that I was supposed to start my blog yesterday, (august, 22). Sorry about that.

I delayed my post because I was waiting for my orientation to finish so I could write about it. As I’m an international student, my orientation wasn’t only “On Iowa!” (go hawks). I had a whole week full of sessions I needed to attend to understand how things work here and where to go if I need help. Also, as I haven’t met anyone who read the UI blogs, I believe that nobody is expecting me to start writing my own. So I wasn’t in a hurry to do so.

My orientation week exceeded all my expectations. First, because I thought I wasn’t going to make any friends until my classes started. However, everyone in my group was so kind and nice that we actually spoke a lot with each other and I was able to make some friends there.  In my dorm afterwards, everyone was very friendly as almost all doors on my floor were open. We still meet every night on the corridor to chill out together.

During orientation week I got to learn things I didn’t know about the university. For example, I met a group of people that organizes conversation meetings from Monday to Friday, 12:30-13:30 p.m. for people who want to improve their English speaking skills. This is an amazing opportunity for me because I don’t think I speak the language very well, (surprisingly I only have to take reading classes for ESL).

Later in orientation, I met my adviser, and when he told me to stop registering for classes when I reached 17 S.H I thought it was weird because I was used to spending all day in the classroom. I’m glad he told me so because I already have too much homework and have to study a lot for my classes. Hence, I will need all the time I can find to study and hang out with people.

Another good thing that happened during my meeting with the adviser was that I accidentally registered for classes only in the morning. That’s good because I’m a morning person and I have my afternoons free to do whatever I need to do.

For now that’s all that I have, I hope you all enjoyed your time here and I expect to write more soon. Probably I’m going to write once a week. Posting my entries on Mondays. See you next week.