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Sooooooo, I arrived yesterday evening around 7 pm (2 hours late) at the Telluride House at Cornell University. I met my factota Becca, first and she helped me with my things. I immediately noticed her large Africa shaped earrings, I wanted to ask where she got them but there were more important matters afoot. My family came up to the third floor (so many stairs) and kinda watched me unpack. It was probably the most awkward encounter i have ever endured. They just kinda stated the obvious and looked around. Everyone was very tired and kind of unsure of what to do next. I tried to boost morale by moving quickly and with excitement as well as by talking about how great everything was going to be but nothing seemed to relieve the tension. I ended up going to take my own personal tour of the house by myself that night because I got hungry. I learned that the kitchen is open. Anyone can come in anytime to get something out of the leftovers fridge or a cabinet. There's also a ice machine and PURIFIED water. That's huge to me considering just last summer I stayed 2 weeks at an institution whose water tasted of copper and other minerals. And the food.......shut-the-front-door good! Everything handmade from scratch by two really cool guys. I was in there for water and I saw him actually peeling and cutting the potatoes for mashed potatoes. We have healthy and nutritionally valuable meals. Like today, for dinner I had pork chops, mac and cheese, steamed broccoli, mashed potatoes and brownies. There is always juice, water, chips and fruit available at any time as well. There is also a refrigerator for people who go and buy their own stuff they want to keep in the house. I had kitchen duty today after lunch and was alright. We just put away food, dishes and sweep and what not. Basic maintenance. Speaking of lunch, we had some chicken fried rice and to my surprise it was more than good it was majestic. Of course you can't replace American Chinese cuisine but this stuff was homemade AND good so kudos. This morning I had my first seminar and it was just so great. It was nothing like a typical classroom setting. We all sat in a circle in a room open and lighted by the outside. We have two professors; one a professor from Ethiopia and the other a poet-timetraveler-activist-feminist-trap queen- award winning author-professor. (Yes, she called herself a trap queen....it was hilarious). The first assignment was to choose an aspect of the house we like and write 4 sentences on it. Then for 10 minutes we used those 4 sentences to write randomly. I wrote about these old broken black phones that are in most of our rooms. My writing turned poetic very quickly which turned out to be a great thing for discussion. Everyone shared their randomness and then we began our material. We touched on topics like culture appropriation, space for failure, perspective, code switching, poetry, Thomas Jefferson, iambic pentameter, patterns in black girls names, arts & crafts, critical white gaze, and soooo much more. We really just had one big conversation and learned from each others experiences and opinions. I can confidently say I learned more about the world in that one 3 hour seminar than one week in history class at school. Many of my fellow TASSers agreed. We took a tour of the campus. It was hot. The view is beautiful and the opulence of the campus' architecture cannot even be put into words. The landscape is like all hills therefore my legs ache. We got our Cornell ID's (I took a good picture) and took group pics. We also read book one of James Baldwin's Just Above My Head. I have never been around teens so driven to learn and get things done. They wanted to read ahead have group discussions and read together and everything. At the end of today we met as a group and watched the video K.I.N.G by Astro. It was about ignorance in the African-American community. That turned into a discussion about black hair, culture appropriation, activism, stereotypes, grey areas (open intervals), music, individuality and celebrity influences on behavior. Now I'm with my roomie, near asleep, waiting for the shower to open so I can write/read myself to sleep in comfort.   So I had a great first day in the regards that dinner was bomb, the seminar (and the professors) rock, the other TASSers are unlike any other rising juniors I have ever met and my roommate is cool. I will try to keep this up and post at least every other day but mannnnn....lol, we'll see.

Love, your favorite sporadic teenager,
Cam L.B