Evan's Latest

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Hello-Hello,
Well I suppose I have quite a bit of information to fill people in on. So....where do I begin... Well first off let me inform you that I have arrived in sunny Los Angeles and have started my courses at USC. The real fun, or should I say nightmare was getting here via Amtrak. To make a long and excruiciatingly boring story short I'll cut right to the chase and tell you that my train arrived 22 hours behind schedule. Yes, thats right, 22 hours. The problems arose when my initial train out of buffalo came in 4 hours late and then it just started to build on through there. We were stuck in San Antonio for 9 hours waiting for a new Engine to pick us up and and then we were plagued by frieght traffic all the way to Los Angeles. On the bright side I did get to meet a lot of interesting people. Whenever I went for a meal I was usually seated with a larger group in the dining car to conserve space. On my first night onboard I had dinner with an Amish couple and an old WWII Air force veteran. Suffice it to say the conversation progressed sluggishly. On another night I ate with an old retiree originally from New York, but now living in Florida. He was on his way to gamble his pension away in Vegas. Also seated at that table was an old couple from New Orleans. At some point during the meal the topic of presidents came up and the three of them proceeded to state their opinions of every president from Eisenhower on up. Fortunatly this tedium came to an end when the woman from New Orleans stated that Hillary Clinton's chance at the presidency was severly hindered by the fact that she was a raving lesbian.
Other highlights of the trip included downing shots of Jack Daniels with a girl from Texas named Whitney: talking about movie ideas with a woman who sold vintage tackle on the internet through her company "Fishin'-Chicks.com": my neighbor in the sleeping car telling me the story about the time she killed a Dimond Back rattlesnake by shooting it in the mouth with her trusty .22 cal revolver when she was 10 years old: Walking around in the 110 degree heat of Yuma Arizona, watching the sun set over the mountains as we passed the Salton Sea, arriving in union station in Los Angeles finally getting off the train and then discovering that my bags were nowhere to be found. (After much running around I finally figured out that my luggage had arrived 2 days ahead of me and was being held in at a baggage claim). Of course there were many more highlights but these were the best of the best.
USC is an amazing campus, I've met some interesting people here already and the classes are exactly what I hoped for and ten times more. Speaking of which I have to go to my first cinematography class, I'll try to post again tomorrow

cheers,
Evan

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