Move-in Week! / Week 0
It has been exactly one week since I have moved into my dorm, settled in, and made friends with my room-mate and hall mates, all 40+ of them. I do not know the exact number because every day I seem to find another person that swears that they have resided in this dorm hall the entire time and I also meet other people that just come to visit because as they say, B1East, my hall, is the most awesome, more social hall in the building. *Insert major gloating and pride.
Move-in day was a bit hectic because I essentially had no one to help me. My plane from Florida left the West Palm Beach Air Port at around 6:30 am and landed in Houston, Texas around 7:40 am, a two hour plane ride as Texas is an hour behind Florida. There was an hour and a half lay over until my transfer plane was airborne once again, this time dry, sunny, yet chilly, Riverside, California, in which it would land in Ontario Airport. During that ride I was met with a superb surprise, one of my elder sisters was a flight attendant. At that moment, my day didn’t seem so daunting ^.^, I had family along with me for the journey to a new chapter in my life. It was fun being able to see my sister in action and be able to converse with the other flight attendants without the normal forced, tight smile, and helper-customer relationship. All of a sudden those women, and men no longer appeared to be impeccably dressed in their crisp out-fits and perfect hair and no holes in their stockings kind of people; they were just like the rest of us, talking, laughing, gossiping, dreading going back to work and standing on their aching feet.
When the plane landed and I exited to the baggage claim area, it still hadn’t set in that I was starting my life as a college student away from my family and friends. Even as I met up with the shuttle driver as he loaded my luggage into the van and picked up two other passengers, one a 2nd year at my school, and drove us to our designated areas to move-in, not once had I cried or felt nostalgic, I was excited for this once in a life-time opportunity. I checked in and got the keys to my dorm building and room and loaded my heavy luggage onto a cart and lugged it into the jam-packed hallways to my dorm room. Then it hit me, I had trouble putting the luggage inside of the cart, how in all of my 5”4, 115lb frame am I going to lift a 57lb suitcase that goes up to waist, a pink 50lb trunk, and my carry on out? I had no one to help me. When I was lugging the cart inside the building I passed by numerous students with their parents and siblings helping them and there I was with my lonesome self… Fortunately for me my next door neighbor are these three guys and one of their mother’s saw my struggle and said to me, “Honey, why are you trying to lift these heavy bags when we have very capable men all around us? Hold on a minute, let me call my son *Hayden to help you.” Hayden was a huge help, he took out my entire luggage and even placed them neatly in my room for me. That one act of kindness put me at ease; well I had a smile on my face as I began the task of un-packing and packing. As I began to make my bed, which thanks to my Mommy, included a bed skirt and the correct sized sheets, one of my hall mates walked in and asked if she could help me make-up my room. That was the second act of kindness in a span of 10 minutes. Maybe this wasn’t so bad. Even though I didn’t have my family there to help me that day, because of that, I was able to meet and be-friend two of my hall mates before the school year officially began.
Move-in week included a lot of activities to keep us freshmen and transfer students busy and I assume it was a way to keep us from feeling home-sick and calling Mom and Dad to come and pick us up, as if I had that choice. Yeah, let me call my Mommy to buy my a flight ticket home because I feel home-sick, :p. If I were to write about all the activities that occurred during the first couple of days, this blog post would never end. So, to summarize, it was exactly what I needed. My room-mate and I went everywhere together, we really bonded. I wasn’t expecting us to bond like we did, but I am glad because in the beginning I thought I was paired with the wrong person. We are in different majors, me Asian Studies and she a Pre-Business major and on top of that she had never listened to Korean pop music, something that I love and listen to all the time, but it all worked out. I’m hoping by the end of the year that we are just as pleasant to each other as we are now.
I started my first day of class on Thursday 22nd. I had two classes, First-year Japanese and Language and Linguistics. Both went well, one better than the other. Friday I had Intro to South East Asian Stories and First-year Japanese again. All three of my teachers are wonderful and they are very passionate about what they teach which I am enjoying very much. There is nothing more disappointing than being taught by someone that is not passionate and is only going through the motions.
I am adjusting well to college life and I do have to thank my many older siblings and fours of International Baccalaureate classes for that. Thanks to my many siblings it is not hard for me to adjust to neither the communal bathroom setting nor the loud noises resounding through the walls of which are my hall mates talking and laughing during the night. Balancing my schedule also isn’t difficult because I am only taking three classes and no discussions, so I have a lot of time. I am more used to having four classes a day for 8 hours a day and going home to write research papers, read short stories/novels, and completing my three online courses.
All-in-all, Week 0 of college life has progressed smoothly. I do miss my family and friends, but I know that this is one step towards my future and sooner or later this was going to happen. Fortunately for me, this happened sooner.
