I've now been here for a full month and my graduate career/life/purgatory is somewhat underway. Being in labs for parts of the past 5+ years has dampened my excitement coming in, but nonetheless this is a foray into the unknown and a chance to start fresh.
Most importantly I learned (or relearned?) that I tend not to like undergrads (or people in general). The apartment complex I live in has its fair share of undergrads, and most (if not all) of them have the inability to tell time and fail to remove their laundry from the washers more than an hour and a half after they are done. Sometimes when I walk to/from the office I'll overhear undergrads talking about drinking, partying, or the people they hooked up with last weekend. I've never really understood why people choose to be so open about their indiscretions around everyone else, and why they choose to value those ideas over most others.
I also never understood going over homework sets during class time. Class time should be spent learning material, not spent on what was already supposed to be learned. I feel like if there's a gap in understanding then make use of office hours or try to understand what's been missed. I just feel like it's time wasted that could be used more productively (either learning more material or not having class at all).
Seattle has actual working public transit (at least much better than LA) that has buses that run somewhat regularly. There's even an app that tells you when the next bus should be arriving, and at least tries to account for early/late buses. It's pretty cool, and it's made even better by my bus pass. It's convenient when I want to get to campus in the morning when I wake up late and it's raining (which occurs somewhat regularly).
I have found the 99 Ranch, but it's 10 miles away, so I have to have someone drive me there each week. There's also an Uwajimaya in the international district, but there's no good bus to get there from my apartment. The QFC nearby carries a surprisingly large range of products, but of course the produce tends to be more expensive at QFC than at the asian marts. Personally I've just waiting for the Din Tai Fung to open nearby (within a 5-minute walk from my apartment) sometime in November.
Labwork so far hasn't been very productive, mostly because I'm also balancing it with my classes at this point, but I've joined a group and I'm looking forward to doing research for the next N years (and hopefully I'll at least not hate research when this is all said and done).
Woo grad school!
