I'm in Chicago... yay!!! Okay, I've been waiting for this day for the last, oh... 9 months or so, and the fact that I've had 2 hours' sleep in the last 25 hours makes it feel more magical.

We left LA at 9 pm last night, had a lay-over in Las Vegas, and landed in Chicago O'Hare at a little past 5am (Central). I didn't sleep on the flight to Vegas, and got at most 2 hours' sleep on the flight to Chicago. After that, we rented a minivan, had breakfast at a hotel near my dad's company's Chicago office, picked up the luggage I had sent two weeks ago (on the day I drove over my PowerBook) at 7:30am. I was in front of my dorm at 8:07, was then directed to a different dorm for check-in, only to learn that the lady there didn't know people were arriving at our dorm today (there are only 5 transfer students arriving today). Eventually, I managed to move everything into my apartment.

Oh, my apartment. Yeah, it's great. It's really big for a dorm (even an "apartment-style dorm"). There's a big huge kitchen area, two bathrooms (for 4 of us), a pretty big livingroom area, and the bedrooms (which I'm sharing with one other person) are pretty big too. What's more, it's located right across from the Museum of Science and Industry, perhaps one of the coolest science/tech museums in the country. Like, today, they were flying an exact replica of the 1903 Wright Flier on the front lawn. Right across form our apartment/dorm. If it weren't for all the trees (yay for trees!), I probably could've seen it from my bedroom window.

Oh, and there's wireless. Yup. In my room. They told me all the dorms had wireless, but not all the rooms did. But I do in my room. Two-bars dude. Except, when I authenticated, it told me to reboot... how lame. Of course, I turned AirPort on and off, switched to ethernet, etc and eventually got online without rebooting. *Shrugs*

Anyway, after seeing the replica Wright Flier attempt to fly and fail, we headed to the Reynolds Club for registration. Considering the amount of people, and the amount of stuff we had to do, it was very well organized. First we had to pick up our schedule (for O-Week), get a bunch of freebies (t-shirt, cup, a big huge folder full of stuff, and more stuff), then sign up for language placement tests (I signed up for Russian and German). Then we were ushered over to Reggs (the main library) to get our ID cards, and then got a bag from NSIT (the network/tech guys) that had stuff like a CAT-5 cable and bunch of pamphlets inside. Oh, in the library, they also had stations where you could download some Orientation related program on to a Palm. I had my Visor with me, so I checked it out. Cool stuff.

I took my dad on a quick tour of campus, showed him the quads, the hammer and sickle statue, etc, then went to the Financial Aid office. The good news was that they'd finally processed my application. The bad news was that we got heck of a lot less than we hoped for. Part of it might've been because they thought my brother was a grad student, and not an 8th-year undergrad, so we haven't heard the last of it yet. Anyway, officially, we're still not sure how we're going to pay for it. My dad and I did some brainstorming over lunch (in Bartlett, a gym-turned-cafeteria rated 2nd best in the country) and decided to start a company. Unlike the other times I "started a company", we're literally starting a company but without a business (unlike the other times when I tried to have a business without a company). I have a few ploys for milking, er making money, and if all else fails, I might turn IlohaMail into the ultimate webmail program and hold it ransom. Before that though, I'm going to see if I could get some scholarships or a grant for my work on IlohaMail. After all, I've got upwards of 100,000 people using it... somebody's gotta be willing to pay (I know, I'm starting to sound like the RIAA).

Anyway, we're just taking a quick break back in my room. Opening Convocation is at 3pm, then there's a bagpipe procession... whatever that is. I haven't met very many people, mostly because there's nobody here in my dorm (although I think I've met just about everybody who is here). But I've been enjoying the sights... don't let them fool you when they say "the squirrels are cuter than the girls." It's true, but only because the squirrels are extremely cute, not because the girls aren't cute... they are. Well, at least I think they are. The girls, I mean. The squirrels too.