A Few Things

We are now officially enrolled at UW after having scheduled all of our courses for the Autumn quarter and being billed for tuition ... which the university will be picking up once classes start. :-)

We also biked to campus and back in order to estimate our travel times. The ride to campus is smooth, being entirely downhill. It only took 10 minutes, with very little pedaling. The ride back was a bit more strenuous, being mostly uphill, but still only took about 15 to 20 min. It seems as though we will be relying on our bikes a lot while the weather is nice. Our "commute" will be shorter than most of our "on-foot" travels at PSU going to and from our apartments. It makes us wish we had used our bikes at PSU.

Tyler also took the time to check out his new office on campus. He is sharing a good sized room with 5 people. They each have their own individual desks and Tyler chose the only one that is sectioned off on two sides by cubicle walls in order to have a more private space to himself. The room has large windows and high ceilings so it doesn't feel cramped at all, but we'll see how it goes once he's working there regularly and has to deal with his neighbors. Otherwise, he's hoping the room gets cleaned before they officially "move in". As of right now it is very dusty and there are cobwebs lingering in various nooks and crannies.

Tyler's student services coordinator, Sam, is also very helpful and nice. She basically does everything; she's like the "go-to" person whenever one of the grad students has a question. We ran into her when dropping off a few books at Tyler's office, and she immediately recognized him after only meeting once or wice. When Tyler introduced me as "his girlfriend" she remembered that my name was Amanda and I was in Chemistry even though the last time any of this information was mentioned was when we were scheduling our visitations back in March so that we could share hotel accommodations. In other words, she seems to be very on top of things.

While on campus, we took care of obtaining our Husky ID cards:



As you can see, Tyler's picture-taking abilities have improved ... somewhat. :-P Luckily when we returned home that same day, our enrollment and uPass stickers were in the mail. Apparently we receive stickers for each quarter to put on our ID's to prove that we are enrolled. This is shown as the brown sticker on the front that says "Au 08", meaning Autumn 2008. The uPass sticker is our bus pass for all metro buses in Seattle. This sticker gets placed on the back of our ID. These are also handed out per quarter. I'm assuming we have to peel off the old ones when we receive our new stickers.

Now that we received our uPass stickers, we can ride the bus! So we decided to try it out on Thursday by taking a trip to the gym. The buses are similar to the CATA buses at PSU (bringing back many memories) but a lot nicer. The bus trip went smoothly, and we soon found ourselves walking on areas of campus we had yet to discover. Campus is VERY beautiful, and I plan to take some pictures before I get too busy. There are so many trees! And, the layout is not a grid, like PSU. Unfortunately, this may be more aesthetically pleasing, but it also means you loose your sense of direction very quickly.

Finally, we made it to the gym (after looping around the "scenic" route). I have to admit, I was a little skeptical about what their facilities would be like after coming from PSU who offers 3 gyms and a separate Natatorium (indoor swimming) to all students. Here at UW they only offer one large complex; however, I had no need to be concerned. Their facilities are leagues better than Penn State's; even better than the new Rec Hall gym. It will be interesting to see how crowded they get during the semester. Where to start:

• The Indoor Track - On one of the top floors is an indoor track with actual rubber flooring and lines. There are about 4 huge digital signs hanging from the ceiling with a timer so that you can time your runs. There are windows all around the track to view the beautiful mountains and landscape while you run. On the same level, on the inside of the track, are two workout areas, one with weights and one with machines that are open to the track. They are positioned at opposite ends. In the very middle (between the workout areas), there are two rooms where you look down to the floor below to view either the basketball courts, or a huge rock climbing center that spans both floors. There are also places to stretch with mats, balance bars, and workout balls, in each of the four corners of the track. VERY NICE!
• The Locker Rooms - They are HUGE! They also include various degrees of showering; from the standard open room to private stalls. They have a help desk to get towels and soap. They have dryers for clothing. And they have a sauna!
• Towels - They offer clean white towels throughout the gym which can be picked up at "towel stations" and then dropped off in a bin for laundry.
• Pool - The indoor pool, while currently closed, looked very nice. They also offer a viewing area one floor above the pool where there is comfortable seating complete with laptop desks (for the wireless internet).
• Dawg Bites - They even include a health food themed vendor to get all of your energy drinks, smoothies, sandwiches, power bars and what-not.
• Etc ... - They also have a large room with all the standard work out machines, a separate area on the bottom floor exclusively for free weights, lots of workout class rooms for fitness classes, and 2 levels of racquetball/handball/wallyball courts (which were interesting to walk around in). And this is only the stuff that we were able to check-out during the short time we were there.

We spent about an hour exercising and another 20 minutes walking around. Did I mention that the gym membership is included in our tuition? Which, in our case, means the school is paying for it! Awesome! I think I might need to check out their rock climbing classes! :-)

P.S. Coming Soon .... pictures of the apartment. ;-)