> The library has books I didn't know existed, or at least never really expected to see myself ('The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature', 'Allgemeine Bücherkunde zur neueren deutschen Literaturgeschichte').

The library facilities we had at the school I went to (UNH; University of New Hampshire) RULED. Libraries in general rule. I used to hang out in them a lot, but I'm out of the habit now.

> It's not as fun when you can't understand what one of your professors is saying, though.

LOL! That brings back memories. I never had that problem myself, but Darleen had this one computer science T.A. that had a THICK Indian accent. There were/are a lot of Indians at UNH, but this was the only one we couldn't understand. He was indecipherable sometimes. Fortunately that was just the one class.

You may notice as you progress from year to year that the quality of the classes improves as you go. Freshman classes have a tendency to be humongous lecture hall classes taught by whichever member of the department is overdue for it. The upper level classes tend to be much smaller groups and taught by the department's resident expert in that particular field. The teacher/student relationship tends to be a lot tighter. None of the above statements are universal absolutes, just what seems to be the tendency for how college classes are taught.

> One of the neatest things here is that practically everyone gets the use of a new laptop included in their tuition.

That RULES. I'm jealous.

> The university is small, but the students still practically double the population of the town.

Ours doubled the town population too, but it wasn't small. 11,000 students, I think, give or take. Do you know about how many students there are at your school?

> I'm in a pretty quiet residence, which is good, and have a nice roommate, which is even better.

That makes ALL the difference. In my first two years, I had a good roommate and a bad roommate. Even the bad one wasn't half as bad as he might have been, but it still made a world of difference.

> The best experience by far here, though, has been the chapel.

That's awesome! Cool.