Home is Behind You

...and by you I mean me. Almost twenty four hours later, I have moved into my dorm, ate a meal in the dining hall, gone to a (very fun, orientation ice-breaker type, university approved) party, slept in a bed raised way off the ground and didn't fall out, and used a pretzel stick to stir my coffee. I know, I know, that last one doesn't make a lot of sense, but hear me out: there was so much running around yesterday, I'm not at all surprised I forgot that I needed coffee stirrers. I am so happy with my new home, I don't know what to do.

My journey to my new home started Friday morning, bright and early, packing the car with all my essentials, and running last minute errands. Who runs errands at eight in the morning? My family, that's who. Of course, as you may or may not know, it's not a trip anywhere if we don't forget at least one essential thing. The things we forgot lead me to my current hypothesis about the world: eight in the morning is just too early for math, even simple math like counting pins needed for a bookshelf. My mom went off to do one thing while my dad and I ran off to pick up hardware for my bookshelf. We managed to only get enough for one bookshelf. Whoops. Anyway, we met back up with mom and she laughed at us. But, like I said, eight is just too early for math; there's a reason I scheduled my calculus class for the early afternoon.  We also managed to forget my lamp too, so there's that.

Lo and behold, we finally managed to get underway, with a little twist: I drove most of the way in my car with my dad while mom was in her car. Yes, we had to take two cars, but one must remember that the two cars we took are both not exactly suited for moving. Travel, absolutely, moving, no. Because it is Florida, we ran into a pretty intense thunderstorm, and clearly I'm writing this so we're all fine. Florida showers are strange things. Anyway, we made it to Lakeland and got settled in the hotel. Bedtime was supposed to be early, what with moving in and everything, but that didn't happen. It never does, does it?

Alright, alright, alright! Let's talk about moving, shall we? It was a lot of fun! Sort of. It only took about an hour, and then we were off running errands, picking up things like coffee and a Swiffer. Of course, we forgot coffee stirrers but that's beside the point. When I got back, it was time for a hall meeting with the RA which was interesting. We went around, gave our names/hometowns/majors, listened to all the rules, and played Two Truths and a Lie, which I think is a pretty cool ic e breaker if I do say so myself. Can you guess which of my three facts is the lie? I said: I love reading Shakespeare, I hate the color pink, and music is my favorite thing ever.

After that, it was time for cleaning my room up (siwffering, organizing) and dinner. I'm not going to lie, the dining hall was huge and intimidating. But, I'm not one for being timid and I was quick to find someone I recognized from Advising Days and strike up a conversation. Hooray college! Then, the real fun started. We went to the auditorium to meet up with our orientation groups and get this whole thing underway. Just saying, being an O-leader would be something I'd love to do. I wonder how one gets involved with that. We went to small group, got to know each other (good grief at the ice breakers- for future reference my favorite tree is the weeping willow), went over the orientation schedule, then were set loose to go to the "headphone dance party" as they called it. It was quite entertaining. More people, strange games, and dancing like absolute idiots. It. Was. Awesome. I have to say, orientation is starting to seem a lot like summer camp for college students. There's no telling what today has in store.