It\’s strange to be in a city where I don\’t recognize anybody. What I mean…is not quite about not seeing people I know. But rather walking down the street and coming across the girl that was in Linguistics with me or the weird looking guy who I had to help fix his computer. My first week in Pittsburgh is almost over and I feel so much more settled than I was at the beginning of the week. It also might be because I now have a bed, a plastic drawer thing, my overpriced mirror from Ikea, and my overdone hangers (also another mistaken purchase from Ikea).

I also bought laundry detergent. For the very first time. I\’ll like to declare that I have never done laundry on my own in my life. At the age of 22, I will put my clothes in the washing machine…turn on the water, dump in the clothes, pour in the detergent, hit \”start\” and wait 30 minutes to put the rest of the clothes in the dryer. So, am I missing any steps?

Today, I went along with Jack (someone I did research with this summer in Berkeley), his housemate and Justin to…almost all the cheap furniture places in Pittsburgh. Needless to say, cheap furniture stores does not mean they have quality things (of course). Not to mention, it was humid because of morning thunderstorms…so it was tiring to trek from store to store…when all I wanted was to be in the cheap wood and clean design of a Swedish furniture store.

So far, I learned that PhD students tend to be more \”quieter\” than the masters students. HCI is always more \”interactive\” and social than CSD students. Despite being the top program in HCI in the US, the hci program is significantly smaller than of CSD. Also, my housemate can get very drunk. :)

Oh yeah yesterday like my farewell party, I used my laptop and the free dell speakers to play music until my other housemate brought down his speaker system. YEAH!