Day two in L.A.

The good news is that I think I've sorta figured out a large part of the apartment complex. The bad news is I was up at 5:30 AM because my body was telling me it was 8:30. Oh well, I'm drinking coffee and trying to make this a little later of a night so I can normalize. Right now, east coast time is great in the morning. I'm up wicked early and have lots of time. But it sucks around 2-3 in the afternoon and you can forget it after 8. I went to bed at 8:30 last night. Well, anyway...
We had breakfast with our class and faculty at the LAFSC facility this morning at 9:00. It's about a 5 or 6 block walk, which will be great exercise doing that everyday. I'll have to take a picture of the building, it's impressive...as is the view of downtown L.A. from the 16th floor window. I'll have to take a picture of that as well. And, speaking of pictures...I've posted some of my trip and of the complex I'm living in, so check those out if you haven't already. They're on FB.
So, After breakfast, we had a little worship service and our resident director, Sarah, shared a little bit before we heard from a couple alumni from the LAFSC program. Then, David and I took off to do some shopping. I learned two things: 1)everything is typically busy in L.A. 2)there are a lot of impatient drivers out there who don't give a crap that you have out of state plates and might be new to the area. There are however a lot of friendly people that I've bumped into. I even got to ride a crowded elevator with a sizable Indian family. I was going to take the next elevator, but they insisted that I join them. Cozy.
So, we survived our first shopping venture that required us to drive. Most things are within walking distance, but we didn't feel like having to carry so much stuff back to the apartment, so we drove. That makes sense, right?
I spent some time talking with Lori, Abbi, Allison, Sharon, and Thomas today and that made my whole day. I was really missing them.
We had a two and a half hour meeting tonight on community living, standards, earthquake safety(did you know that FEMA suggests that if you're trapped under debris, not to light a match? Good to know, right?), and basic street smarts.
I'm excited about the semester laid out in front of me. It's going to be a lot of work, but it's going to be fun as well. There's so much to do too. I won't be able to do it all, of course, but there will be several things that have to be done. You can't come to L.A. and not go to certain places...like the walk of fame. And there is a church here that actually has a walk of fame star for Jesus. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but may attend once just to see the star. I think I'll actually visit several churches while I'm here, you know just for fun. And there's a book study that the resident director and her husband will be hosting. They study books like, the Screwtape letters and stuff by Bonhoeffer (I probably spelled that wrong). and things like that.
Anyway, I've probably bored you enough with today's events. Now, I must finish writing a 2 page character description that is due tomorrow.