I spent the last couple of days down in SLO, meeting with my advisor, looking at places to live, and locating hardware stores and hobby shops (the basic needs of an architecture student).
Downtown SLO is kind of twee and slightly yuppy for my tastes, but workable. There was a shoe repair shop, which bodes well. I don't think much of people who can't support even one shoe repair shop.
The countryside out of town is breathtakingly beautiful, and reminds me of the countryside outside of Ithaca, with slightly different vegetation overlaid on it. Last night I went for a drive through the fields and got to watch a sunset through the fog, that brilliant orange light streaming across the crops horizontally, diffused by the fog and occasionally cut out entirely by the hills.
I liked one place I saw: a tiny bedroom, but lots of common space, a usable garage, and a house dog who is charming and well-behaved. If I lived there, Rosie could occasionally visit for short periods, as long as she was well-behaved. That has a great appeal. Also, there would be a small private patio that I could fill with plants.
I looked at a couple of more generic places, but they felt very dormitory-ish, and I really dislike the feeling that I would be asked to buy alcohol for my underage roommates all the time. Also, they were much more expensive.
My meeting with my advisor went well. I worked out a schedule for next quarter, but a longer-term schedule will have to wait because there was a mixup in the admissions office and they didn't realize they had to do transcript analysis for all of the transfer students. So I probably won't get my analysis until mid-fall. I was a bit surprised to find that I'd be taking 18 credits rather than the expected 15, but they're in the middle of curriculum changes, so in a way it was to be expected.
I register on Friday afternoon.
