This post is a photo dump about my little adventure in Richardson today.

The sun

My room

The sun is rising outside of my window. Today first day living in my real home.

Run rise

I took a 90 minutes walk to and around the UTD campus. It was a beautiful, big, and clean campus. Feeling very excited to take classes here.

Alt text

Here, the sun is way too shiny, and absolutely hot. To walk on the streets around 10AM, one would definitely need an umbrella, a pair of sunglasses, an a comfortable pair of shoes (due to the large distances).

The campus

UTD front

UTD front. A great feeling to see something you have been seeing a lot online

UTD map

UTD map. Always love the maps, probably because it gives a sense of control and certainty over something (power of knowledge?).

My department

My department

The scenery

The scenery

The fountain

The iconic fountain of UTD campus…

The memorial

… which is actually a memorial place for students who died while studying at UTD

UTD bus

A nicely decorated bus, isn’t it

Cooking

groceries

Groceries for the next one or two weeks, bought at Walmart and Cali Saigon Mall

cook

I cooked for myself the very first meal in America, using the ingredients bought today. I was so relieving to know that I can finally cook good Vietnamese food easily at home

An update email I wrote to my UTD professor earlier that day

Hi Dr. [X],
Yesterday I have just finished settling down to my room. This is an off-campus house, shared with 2 UTD students and 2 Fulbright (the scholarship) language teachers at UTD. I find this a decent place – walkable distance to our department building, affordable rent, with friendly co-tenants. I am planning to venture out by myself today to explore the neighbor and the campus, which is exciting.
My trip was a 24-hour travel from Saigon to Vietnam, including a 6-hour stop at San Francisco. Luckily, it went smoothly, and I got comfortable enough to write an NLP blog while on the plane! My family has a friend who is living in Garland, so he picked me up at the airport and let me stay in his house for the first two days and drove me around to buy stuffs.
Dallas is a beautiful city so far. Yes the weather is so warm, which is entirely different from that in SF (it was a cool 22-degree Celsius there). But compared to Vietnam, it does feel drier, with higher frequency of wind. We were driving through the campus on my first day here. It was so empty, probably because it is still in the summer.
A bit about my preparation for research, I have worked through [… yada yada …]
That’s pretty much my experience so far in this city. I hope you are having a good time being with your family. Looking forward to seeing you when you are back.
Best,
Khoi