I am writing this entry at my house for a
change. I went home for the long
weekend and I am not going to lie…it’s weird. Even though I have only been in college for a few weeks, I’ve already
adjusted to the college lifestyle. I
can go to bed whenever I want, I can eat where and when I want, and I can
basically do whatever I want. So
needless to say, being at home under my parents’ thumb is a big change. I know my parents really like the fact that
I am home and I love them, it is just different. There are definite perks though! All of my favorite meals are being fixed and I can just be lazy all
day! I just think that it’s interesting
how easily I have adjusted to a different life, but, as the cliché says, I
guess that’s part of growing up!
I have officially started classes now. They are good for the most part—a lot of
reading but not that much more than I had to do in high school. My Spanish class is super easy and I really
love my Biology professor. And if I
were still in high school, my life would be a breeze. However, there is this little thing that I like to call a Social
Life, and it can be very time consuming. It was a huge shock to me on one of my first nights here to find
out that people don’t go to social gatherings of any sort until after ten
o’clock! My friend and I (thankfully
she was in the same confusing boat that I was in) were going to meet one of our
older friends to hang out after dinner and so we hurried to get ready and we
were excited and ready to go by 8:30…and she wasn’t going to come get us until
10:15! Maybe I was just a loser in high
school but this is hard to get used to. That being said, I really think that colleges factor these details into
their schedules to help the poor, young, socially challenged freshmen like me
make it though the day. For example, I
have an 8:00 a.m. class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (which is so not fun)
BUT on Tuesday and Thursday, I don’t have class until 2:00 p.m. (which is
fun!). Also, the classes are spaced out
enough so you always have time to get to your classes even if they are all the
way across campus. I think the strangest
thing, though, is that everyone does their homework during the day, in between
classes, instead of at home when you’re finished for the day. I have learned (as mentioned earlier) that
that is because everything happens at night. All of the clubs and organizations have meetings at night and many times
you’ll have three meetings in one night and be out pretty late! It has been so much fun though, and I am
learning new things everyday!
So today was a very long and wet day. In more than one way. When I woke up this morning and went into
our bathroom (I’m in a suite so I only share it with three other people) I
astutely noticed that out toilet had overflowed and our floor was quickly
filling up with water. It was not a
pretty sight. My roommate was thinking
fast though, and she turned the water to the toilet off so it wouldn’t keep
flowing. Then we were confronted with
the problem of a completely messed up toilet as well as a floor full of
water. We all grabbed as many paper
towels as we could and just threw them on the floor because we all had to be
somewhere at the same time (how convenient…not). And to top it all off, it was POURING rain outside.
As my roommate was tending to the floor, I
attempted to go find our Resident Assistant to see if she could possibly help
us. So I knocked. And I knocked again. And she didn’t respond. So I knocked on the other floor’s RA’s
door. And no answer again. I tracked down my RA’s phone number and woke
her up from deep slumber and she called maintenance for us. They didn’t come while I was still there,
though, because I had to leave and my RA informed me that it’s hard to find
people to come fix things at 7:00 a.m. When I came back to the dorm in the afternoon, though, everything was
fixed and they had even cleaned the floor! It was amazing! And the RA was a
total lifesaver—I don’t know what I would have done without her (to show my
appreciation, I made her a very cute sign and taped it to her door)!
I moved in a week earlier than everyone else because I am
going through Sorority Recruitment at my school. Recruitment is an excellent way to meet a lot of the girls that
are going to be in your classes and student organizations, so it’s really neat
to be able to get to know them before the excitement of classes begins. Most importantly (to me) is that being on
campus a week earlier than the majority of the freshman class allows me to
learn my way around campus and know where all of the important buildings are so
that when it comes time to go to class, I will know where everything is (and
impress everyone in the process)!
…is not as easy as it sounds. First of all, I couldn’t get my room key because my name was on
the “immunization list” which meant something was wrong with the reporting of my
immunizations (which are required for you to be an official student—and I really do have
them all, by the way). So I had to hike
across campus to the office where they told me that I didn’t have proof of one
of my immunizations from when I was FOUR YEARS OLD—when actually I did have
proof, but when the proof was transferred from a piece of paper to the
computer, they neglected to fill in that little tidbit. So when I finally got all of that settled, I
went up to my room and the person that I thought I was rooming with was not
assigned to my room. After a few hours
of wondering and continuing to move my things in, my roommate showed up and it
was the same person I thought it was! So basically the whole day was one big confusing mess without any good reason! Besides those little bumps in the road, my
move-in was actually quite successful. Everything has a place and it looks good. I’m planning a trip home in the next month or so, though, so I
think I’m going to get another set of plastic drawers to put under my bed just
to have more storage space. I'm a very organized person so that kind of stuff is important to me (and it makes the room look better and bigger too! I would recommend them for any living arrangement where space is at a premium).
Ok so that may a bit of an overstatement but it
sure seems like it. I had planned to
spend the last week of my summer hanging out with my friends and packing all of my things into boxes/my car at my
leisure (I had a week, right? How long
can it take?). Well, I got a frantic
phone call from a family that I baby-sit for and since I just can’t refuse being paid
to hang out with kids, this last week of mine is being spent with a
two-year-old--which means that I have way less time to pack than I had originally
planned. I have never been one to
procrastinate, however, so earlier in the summer I had made an exhaustive list
of every item that I could possibly need at college, so whenever I could I would
try to get what was on my list. So after
months of careful preparation, I think I have everything that I need! We’ll see how that goes!
In case you haven't noticed, I'm new here in this blogging world. In this blog I have been charged with the task
of documenting my first year at the institution of higher learning of my
choice. But before I get started, I
thought I would take a little time to introduce myself (without revealing any
pertinent personal information, of course). Ok, some things that you might not suspect about me are: I love to watch the news, there’s nothing I
like more than a good night’s sleep, I love all kinds of music from hard rock
to classical, I love to travel and have been to ten countries, and I LOVE my
school! I hope that gives you readers
some insight into who I am and where I am coming from when writing this
blog. The posts probably won’t be that
interesting to you, but they are very interesting to me, considering that I
wrote them. Happy reading!
