Introduction

I've never been one to keep an online journal...or any kind of journal for that matter...only when I'm doing things like studying abroad. Yep, that was just once. Just take my stupid French Creative Writing journal (which wasn't even supposed to be a creative writing course! I'm still mad about that!) as evidence of that. So I can't guarantee that this is going to be a success, but I'll try my hardest. Well, except I would say that my Grenoble journal was sort of successful. I updated fairly regularly and my entries were pretty detailed. And I kept an actual journal in which I wrote funny stories and experiences and kept pictures. I can do that, and I will. So that proves it can be done. I just don't want to be one of those people with an "online journal" if that makes sense. But this is not just a regular journal, so that's okay. And if all of you back home are dedicated to reading my entries about what's going on here, then I'll try my hardest to be dedicated to making those entries. Of course, if you have no idea what I'm talking about or if you have no idea why I'm doing what I'm doing right now, I guess I'd better give a little summary of what this journal is supposed to be about:

On May 23rd, I'll be a student at Columbia University for the summer. To make a long story short, my AIMS counselor told me that I should have left Texas for college in the first place and that I'll never find my peer group here and that I definately need to go east or west to one of the top business schools for an MBA. So going to Columbia and New York City is supposed to expose me to my peer group and help me get a foot in the doors of the top business schools that are my goals for graduate school. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be there for about 15 weeks. I'm taking one class each session (a Corporate Finance course and an Art History course), and each class meets two nights a week, so I'll have quite a bit of free time to enjoy New York City. While I'm there, I hope to spend a day or two a week working at the day camp in Crown Heights in Brooklyn where I worked last summer. I enjoyed my time with those kids so much, and I can't wait to spend some more time with them...so keep your fingers crossed that that works out. Jamie Blassingame, a friend from church, is the summer missionary at the camp this summer, so it will be fun to work at the camp and experience some of New York City together.

I've been to New York City several times before, and those of you who know me well know that I'm well-traveled and love big cities, so I see this as a great adventure (like going to Grenoble). However, I am a little worried because this will be my first experience living in a college dormitory. This is something I've managed to avoid so far, but, well, I've got no choice now. Hopefully the students at Columbia will be much more "serious" students than the ones at Tech.

So, anyway, for those of you who followed my online journal at www.greatestcities.com/users/whitmcb (which was invaded by people trying to sell "bad stuff" over the internet but is still active and has plenty of pictures), this is my new online journal where I will write about NYC and post some pictures...if everything works correctly. You can also leave comments here to tell me of all the ways that Lubbock just isn't the same without me. And you'd better leave comments.

So, here come a couple of pictures to take up space until I actually get to New York...