Shopping for classes, chasing leads on good professors (such as the legendary Good Life course in the Law faculty, or the gifted Ralph Williams from the English department. On a tip-off from the Fellowship's administrator, the warm and exceptional Birgit, I explored and was accepted into the Residential College language program. A bit like a university within the University, it offers intensive (2-3 hours a day, 4 days a week) language programs with dedicated faculty.
Thursday afternoon was the Fellowship orientation, where we were all bedazzled by the riches of the coming year's program, and awed at the expectations upon each member of the group. Then there was much chatter and mingling at a reception (featuring cake with the sweetest icing I have ever experiences, not to mention the intensity of its blue-and-maize Uni of Michigan colours) before many of the fellows repaired to the beer garden at Ann Arbor institution, Dominick's. Beneath maple trees and winking lanterns, we drank beer and sangria out of large jam jars and scarfed on pizzas until the sun went down and we were kicked out. The bonding of the 2005-06 Knight Wallace Fellows is underway. Walked home, all the better to see the parties lighting up every house.
Saturday was the first football game of the season and college year. Imagine 107,000 people, all clad in blue and/or gold, moving en masse towards a stadium. Student house parties spilled out onto the streets, BBQs were fired up by excited groups of kids with the occasional parent in attendance, plastic drink cups littered the lawns, every car flew an M pennant. Tailgating (where you serve food and drink out of the back of your car, typically the football stadium carpark or somebody's lawn) parties had been underway since breakfast. Is this really going to be the scene every Saturday? Wish I had the merchandise licence, as literally everybody in town is wearing a player's or supporters shirt and/or cap. 'We' won, by the way. Go Blue!
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