i've been here a week, and these are my observations

1. let me tell you about how secure teachers college - and all of columbia - is.  in order to get into my dorm room i have to do the follow:
step 1: tap ID card to get into building lobby
step 2: tap ID card to get into stairwell/elevator area
step 3: security guard who sits there at the ID card swipe-thing then has to buzz me in to the stairwell/elevator area
step 4: i walk upstairs and have to use a key to get into my suite
step 5: i then have to use a different key to get into my room

i hate to tempt fate, but bad guys would have a hard time getting me.  this is pretty comforting.

in order to get into any academic building at columbia you have to tap your ID card at a station where there is also a human being who, i have learned, looks at the little screen to confirm that your picture (that pops up on the computer when you tap your ID card) is actually you.

all of this means that i see security guards EVERYWHERE, and there also tend to be random police officers around, too.  this is relatively comforting, but also a little bizarre.  i rarely saw police officers or security guards in my life in atlanta.  we had one security guard who drove around the whole campus at the school where i worked, plus a retired police officer who was on campus about half the time.  were you a bad guy, you could easily (again, not to tempt fate) walk onto campus, into any building, and into any classroom in that building.  omg.  this is probably giving the security staff at teachers college hives just thinking about it.

2. yesterday i was awoken at 5:30am when a garbage truck picked up garbage outside my window.  it sounded like he was torturing puppies - the machine (trash compactor?) made this horrible squealing noise - and also that he was throwing huge weights around.  i wanted to stab him.  i found my earplugs and was able to go back to sleep.  whew.  it happened again this morning, but at 9:15am, which is a perfectly reasonable time.  if this 5:30 thing is a weekly affair i will NOT be amused.  new york, you were on my good list until this happened.

3. i bought a yoga pass at the columbia gym - this allows me unlimited yoga classes (they offer 3 per day) for three weeks, at which point i can buy another pass for another amount of time, etc.  i have gone to yoga two days in a row, and while it is not the best yoga of my life, it's a pretty good workout and a 5 minute walk from my dorm.  this is KEY, as i know myself, and i wouldn't ever go if i found a yoga studio farther away, even if i liked it more.  convenience is important, and i'm loving how convenient life is on a college campus.

4. i have met all five of my suitemates now, and they are very sweet.  har har.  (but it's true!)  they are all younger than me, which is what i expected living in the dorm; my guess is that they are all about 24 years old.  none of them seem to have had much of a real job, so i feel like i'm in a different place in life than they are, but fine, whatever - we don't have to be best friends, and i don't think we will be.  they want to have a suitemates dinner on sunday night, though, and keep inviting me to things they're going to - again, all very nice girls.  today is one of the girls' birthdays, so i ask her how old she is turning AND SHE SAYS 22.  oh boy.  baby girl.  (i actually said that out loud, which clearly means i am the old lady of the suite and now everyone knows it, because who says "baby girl" except old ladies in the south?!)

5. my cohort for my program is much closer to my age - i would say we range from 26-60 years old, with the average being early 30s.  so far there are no crazies.  do you know what i mean?  you walk into a class and on the first day someone exposes himself as the crazy person, asking ridiculous questions or making asshole comments or being annoying in general...and since we take all our classes together, you know you will have to sit through much more of their crazy.  we're 3 days in and no crazy person has emerged, which is not to say it won't happen, but i'm pretty pleased it hasn't happened yet.  UNLESS IT'S ME.  OH GOD.  no, no...i'm pretty sure it's not me...