Settling In

SU's South Campus might resemble a military post (they put a fresh coat of battleship gray paint on my building this week), but I must say that the interiors are quite spacious, clean, and comfortable. A couple of my chairs likely date from the (first-term) Reagan administration, but otherwise the amenities are modern. The shower is great and the kitchen seems brand new.

I'm in a quiet, leafy corner of what is an expansive housing complex but this seclusion comes at a cost of convenience. Under ideal circumstances, my walk to the law school takes up to 30 minutes, door to door. Fortunately there's a campus shuttle stop nearby with buses running as often as every 10 minutes.

The exterior shot above is of a neighboring building -- mine doesn't look nearly as nice. The hallway shot is outside my second-floor doorway. The "view" is from my bedroom window. Standing at my front door this morning, I saw a family of deer on a neighboring hillside; you would never guess that one of the most crime-ridden sections of Syracuse is just minutes away by car.

There are no numbers on any of the doors; took me three tries to find mine. The walkway and stairwells smell like summer camp (a mix of fresh paint and musty canvas). The first-year law students are the first to arrive, so the whole university is dead for at least a few more days. I was getting cabin fever after just 36 hours, so I can't imagine what the people who got here weeks ago have been up to.