I have been staying in the University of Chicago for about half a month. A good portion of people here are nice, knowledgeable and respectful, which to me is a great comfort. It is a bit surprising how I have already made several friends and them being quite diverse.

I live in a dorm called Max Palevsky Residential Commons. It has orange bricks and yellow stairways. Beside my window I can see the glass egg-shaped dome of Manuesto library, which is a part of the Regenstein library. Fun fact: the Regenstein library is categorized as a Brutalism Architecture. Right beside the gate of the dorm is the Nuclear Energy Sculpture. For me it looks like multiple images at once. It is a mushroom cloud, a person's skull, bubbles in boiling water, and the abstract image of nuclear fission happening to an atom. On a rainy day, the round top of the sculpture would be coated with water and reflect the surrounding buildings. I am referencing the Cloud Gate in downtown Chicago, yes.

I have visited the Art Institute and the Museum of Science and Industry. The self portrait of Van Gogh is impressive. The contrasting colors and curly brushstrokes make the painting very fluid and somehow furry to me. The German U-Boat is also very cool. A friend says I should dress in one of those soldier outfits in the submarine for Halloween. I blend into the vibe of dark secretive cruel hermits in an iron-scent pipes and vaults and engines bounded prison? Hard to tell praise from mockery.

My favorite part of the time before class starts is the night when an Educational Purpose Address was given at the Rockefeller Chapel followed by a discussion lead by a philosophy professor. The address presents an idea of approaching life as you would approach games. The speaker asks the question of if any difference there is between life and a game. He asks people to know the difference between having fun and being a good player. He also reflected on the idea of failing in order to learn. The discussion revolved around the question of what a game is in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. The philosophy professor introduced the concept of uselessness being invaluable as useless activities are highly likely to be ends instead of means. Thought the professor did reject the idea of life being a game. I am luckily not officially a philosopher so I get by seeing everything said as metaphors. Seriously everything humans speak is metaphor as the usage of language is a veil between the world and the experience of the world. But that veil is certainly a fun and fruitful one.