Today was a hectic day filled with all those nice administrative tasks that have to get done anytime you start something new at some new place.
I got up pretty early this morning to go move my car and get a parking permit. It took so long to even get to the car in lot JJ. When I got there I had been given a parking ticket. The ticket was created at 7:35 am and the transportation services doesn't even open until after 8 am on weekdays (closed on weekends) so there would've been no way for me to have purchased a parking permit before I did. Anyway, when I finally got parked in the closest visitor lot to the transportation services building I went in and filled out the form to get the parking violation lifted off my record since it was uncontrollable... then my parking permit cost about $36 more dollars than I thought it would. UGH.
Well, I got done with that and then drove around a bit to find the best place to park my car for the day. I'm allowed to park in numbered lots, that is with the exception of the closest numbered lot to my apartment (lot 15). By this time it was getting on toward 10 am, which was when we were supposed to all meet up in Kristin's office in JM Patterson. We turned in our paperwork and I realized that I had forgotten to get the appropriate form of identification that I needed to receive my stipend for the summer. So I had to call/email dad up to get him to get my social security card from the bank and fax a copy of it to Kristin. Then we all went over to the registrar's office to get UMD Photo ID's. We all were supposed to get "Affiliate" cards, but I think they messed mine up and gave me a "faculty/staff" card... everyone else had 'affiliate' status marked on the ID cards... Oh well, maybe it will help me out sometime down the line. :)
After all this it was about 11:30 am. My group didn't have to be at our lab until 1 pm, so we all hung out and ate lunch... some of them went to access to the recreation centers, but I decided I didn't want to pay another $30 for that service if I wasn't even sure that I'd use it. I'd rather just go take the Metro somewhere or go hang out with friends. If I wanted to go sometime, I could just pay $5 to go in as a guest rather than paying $30 for the summer.
Finally, we went over to our building. Jean-Marie, the undergraduate fellow who's helping out with our program, helped us fill out a bunch of paperwork so we can have access to all the labs and computers we'll need during the summer. We also went to the engineering library so she could just fill us in on a few things we need to know to use them if we need to do research related to our projects or whatever.
Later, the 4 of us in RISE had a little time in the lab while we were waiting for Pamela (well... formally Dr. Pamela Abshire, our faculty mentor/advisor) to get back... so we talked about what we were doing a bit and went through the Team Contract information and brainstormed up some ideas for that. We also paired off into two pairs so there would be an integrated electronics group and an optoelectronics group, like Pamela had mentioned yesterday. I'm going to be working with Maria, a rising junior at UMD, on the optoelectronics project.
Anyway, its going to be a challege for me this summer, since I've not had any background learning any of the basics related to my project and I'm not an electrical/computer engineering major. Jean-Marie has offered to work with me some after work here at the start of the program to help get me up to speed so that will be good.
