First contact with UofM

My fortunate fortune cookie.

Something If forgot to add to my previous post is the fortune cookie I received during my first lunch/meal. I thought it was a good beginning of my stay in Ann Arbor. It says "FUNCTIONING SUPERBLY COMES AUTOMATICALLY TO YOU".

I started Thursday with a walk to the Aerospace building to get an office assignment. This involved filling in a form after which I got a key request form. Unlike TU Delft locks at UofM use "old fashioned" keys instead of RFID. This means that in order to get access to the office I had to go to the key office in central campus and pay a five dollar deposit.

An official UofM key!

So after some introductions around the dept. I decided to head to the kroger's to do some shopping. On my way there I passed by the UM credit union, I decided to go in to ask if I could open an account there as a visiting scholar, this wasn't a problem and a short time later I had a US bank account and 8 temporary checks (I only need six to pay my rent). I grabbed a sub at the sandwich shop next to the bank and headed back home.

After lunch I headed to the key office on central campus. After a short wait my key was made. I read on facebook that the international center was organising a trip to the Detroit auto show, that sounded good so I wanted to buy a ticket. Once I got to the ticket office I found out they were sold out. I would still like to go there, but I'm not sure how I'll manage without a car (renting+ticket might get too expensive for my student budget).

My desk at UofM, the chair's back rest squeaks loudly.

The international center organised a meeting with other international students to get to know people. Most students were from China (of course), but there were a few people from Europe. I was however the only Dutch person in the room. After exchanging some phone numbers interested (and 21+) students decided to go the a bar later that night. It was fun.

I went to the dept. meeting of my research group on Friday, it was pretty short due to a PhD defence later in the afternoon. I got to meet my prof. in person as well as a number of students and researchers in the dept. After the meeting I headed to my office to try out the network and printing. I quickly discovered that the printing system is somewhat archaic. In Delft we use a system that allows you to directly print to a server. You can then swipe your campus card at any printer on campus and have your documents printed (and stapled automatically if you wish). At UM it is not possible to print directly to printers/a print server. Instead you are stuck using a web interface creating additional steps to printing documents. This immediately become more annoying when I tried to print out a thesis which was more than 25 MB in size. I had to use acrobat to split the pdf into two documents before I could send it to the printer. The printer itself also acted a bit quirky, it stopped halfway through the document, spat out a lot of white pages and started printing over again. After finally having printed out my thesis I had my Mcard (campus card) activated for building access off hours (the buildings are always open inside, unlike Delft). After a stop at a wine/beer store and a supermarket I headed home. After dropping off my groceries I went to a nearby Indian grocer and ordered some spicy lamb biryani. That was my week so far. 

I went for a walk downtown saturdayafternoon, taking it easy sunday as my many walks through the cool air have taken a toll on my thoat.