[Robbie]

It was a simple choice. I had entirely missed two summers in a row by being in countries that didn't have them. (Paraguay - which has one, but not during May-August, while I was there; and the west coast of Scotland, which does not have a summer at any time.) So I chose a warm place.

I had never been to Stanford; I had never met anyone who went there. I was quite ignorant except that I knew that it was supposed to be a good school.

But my arrival on campus was quite unusual.

There were only two flights per week directly from Glasgow to the United States (and I didn't want to fly out of London.) The flight on the appropriate day to arrive on campus on time was the same day as a threatened general strike. (These were the Thatcherite years - and Scottish politics meant that a general strike was likely to be widespread.) Two of the more hard-core unions stood in the way of my flight - the ferry workers (since I needed a ferry to get to the airport) and the air traffic controllers. So I decided that it would be better to show up on campus three days early rather than four days late.

It's a long trip - a flight across the ocean, followed by a night in the Philadelphia airport, and then a flight across the country. I'm really tired. So I take a shuttle to campus. I don't know where to have the driver drop me, so he leaves me at Palm Drive.

I have the ResEd information packet. I call some name on the list and tell her my story. She says that RA training is going on right now, if I can get to Creskey Auditorium (I had no idea how to spell it) then she would help me out. I start carrying my stuff. I don't know where I'm going - just hoping to find a map. Two people walk by and see me struggling and offer to help. They figure out where I want to go and each take a bag. We walk from Palm Drive to Kresge - but they are having this conversation about their work. They are grad students in Philosophy (or something like that) - the whole time we're walking I don't understand a word they say. (Well, I understood the words, it was the ideas I didn't follow.) I'm really intimidated - just hoping that not everyone is going to be that much smarter than me.

We get to Kresge, they let me into my room three days early, and I have arrived. And when the rest of the freshmen show up on campus I'm an old timer.

[Robbie]

It was a simple choice. I had entirely missed two summers in a row by being in countries that didn't have them. (Paraguay - which has one, but not during May-August, while I was there; and the west coast of Scotland, which does not have a summer at any time.) So I chose a warm place.

I had never been to Stanford; I had never met anyone who went there. I was quite ignorant except that I knew that it was supposed to be a good school.

But my arrival on campus was quite unusual.

There were only two flights per week directly from Glasgow to the United States (and I didn't want to fly out of London.) The flight on the appropriate day to arrive on campus on time was the same day as a threatened general strike. (These were the Thatcherite years - and Scottish politics meant that a general strike was likely to be widespread.) Two of the more hard-core unions stood in the way of my flight - the ferry workers (since I needed a ferry to get to the airport) and the air traffic controllers. So I decided that it would be better to show up on campus three days early rather than four days late.

It's a long trip - a flight across the ocean, followed by a night in the Philadelphia airport, and then a flight across the country. I'm really tired. So I take a shuttle to campus. I don't know where to have the driver drop me, so he leaves me at Palm Drive.

I have the ResEd information packet. I call some name on the list and tell her my story. She says that RA training is going on right now, if I can get to Creskey Auditorium (I had no idea how to spell it) then she would help me out. I start carrying my stuff. I don't know where I'm going - just hoping to find a map. Two people walk by and see me struggling and offer to help. They figure out where I want to go and each take a bag. We walk from Palm Drive to Kresge - but they are having this conversation about their work. They are grad students in Philosophy (or something like that) - the whole time we're walking I don't understand a word they say. (Well, I understood the words, it was the ideas I didn't follow.) I'm really intimidated - just hoping that not everyone is going to be that much smarter than me.

We get to Kresge, they let me into my room three days early, and I have arrived. And when the rest of the freshmen show up on campus I'm an old timer.