Family Weekend

Last weekend was family weekend here at school. Its pretty much just a clever way to drain more money from or parents who are paying good money to send us here. It was great to see my parents again though, I've missed them so much.

Mom got in from a flight late and Dad left the house a bit late so they arrived at about 11 on Friday evening right in the middle of the "Elephant Love Medley" during the Moulin Rouge screening that was taking place in our room. Peter's younger sister Catherine had never seen it and so my bed was cramped with people. Colleen, Kate, Julie, Peter and I were in the middle of the sing-along as my parents walked in. Peter wins points for the best introduction, in sync with Ewan MacGregor, he changed the words of the song and made them in to "Hiiiiiiii, my name is Peeeeeterrrrr". It worked marvelously as an icebreaker and after a brief tour of the dorm, yet again, they said goodnight and headed to the bed and breakfast.

I had to get up early for swim practice, an event I'm beginning to hate more and more and more as the days go by, but they met me at the cafe in the student center for breakfast and we headed to the senior residences for the swim team bbq where the coach snubbed my mother and rubbed elbows with my father, Dad also made connections with another Italian father and now if I ever need a place to stay, I'm more than welcome at that family's house. The child is a freshman boy that I had hardly ever, and still rarely talk to. At least he was trying, I appreciated that. Mom was her usual social butterfly self, she chatted with the senior guys captain's parents.

Then it was back off to the dorm to change and make our way to the football game. We watched the second quarter and then shuttled off to the B&B so I could get my toddler and puppy fix as the proprietors had both. We spent a good couple happy hours there, Dad wresting the worn tennis ball from the dog, Cedar, and me and Mom spending our time with the adorable little girl, reading and flipping through her books. When we had to leave, she started sobbing. Apparently the same thing had happened earlier that morning when my parents had left, so I suppose it was a bit cruel to do it to her again. But we had reservations to get to.

So back to the dorm for a third time we trekked, meeting up with my roommate and her mom and the other families that were going to dinner. My friends and I had all decided at the beginning of the week before that we wanted our parents to get together and chat and become as good of friends as we were, so we all caravaned out to a restaurant about 15 minutes away, the only place that could hold all 24 of us on such short notice. Parents sat at their table and chatted, presumably about us but no one can really be sure, and the college students and various siblings staked out a "kids table". It was a blast, Kate's twin Sara and Matt had an art-off as they attempted to outdo each other in artistic drawings. Really, it was a wipe out with Matt feebly trying to keep up with Sara who goes to a school for the arts specifically. The kids finished and got our checks before the parents, so we went to wait outside so as not to crowd the building. Kate's dog was in the car so we got him out and had fun running around with him for a bit before we broke off to our separate cars to head back with our parents.

The next day, it was a brunch that seemed to brief at the cafeteria, and a quick tour of the bookstore again before they had to leave. Mom had work early the next morning and the drive home is already exhaustingly long. So I stood on the steps and cried as I waved them off. I'm not a big fan of goodbyes, especially since home is so far away. The only reason I probably stopped crying really was because I knew I would see them in 10 days for the mid-semester break. But still, it hurts to say goodbye.

Waldo-ing

Last night while a good majority of our dorm fellows went out and did "cool things" like go to the concert or frequent the one club in town, or go to one of the many theme parties, my gang and I went to an open mic in a nearby town. We got terrified of some particularly zealous religious people and ended the evening early, coming home around 9:30. I'd just like to toss in the disclaimer that I'm a fairly religious person. I accept a majority of world views and don't judge anyone as I'd rather they not judge me. These people were somewhat insane. What we didn't know was that the open mic was housed and sponsored by a church group. The people then tried to pressure us to talk about beliefs in a sneaky sort of way and then challenged us if they weren't the same. I think the final straw for that night though was when the sweet grandmother got up and started reading her poetry, very aggressively.

After we escaped and rescued three of our classmates, three or four colleges in the region were there and we were all the only people the others knew, we made it back to the dorm and walked in on something just a bit more crazy.

Matt is an actor, YouTube comedy phenom and funny guy. He's also my neighbor. He told us before that he'd dressed up as Waldo from the book series Where's Waldo? for his senior class group picture and we all had a laugh about it. What we didn't expect was that after our already harrowing evening we'd walk in on him completely in costume and character as Waldo.

The point of this exercise?
"I'm going to walk around and confuse drunk people"

Worthy goal.

So Colleen grabbed her video camera, Kate, Julie and I changed into more appropriate running shoes and we followed him out to document the night of Waldo.

Overall, the reactions were limited to "hey its Waldo!" "dude, I found you!" and "its effing Waldo!". Matt informed us that none of these reactions were new and we nodded, double taking a moment later to wonder exactly how much data he had to back this up with. Throughout the night he poked his head in windows, got chased by several drunk people who wanted to catch him, experienced photo ops and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich from the pub in the student center, even paying for his meal in cash instead of with his meal plan card so he didn't give his real identity away.

The high point of the evening came as we found a perfect spot to stand by the student center with heavy foot traffic and a group of people recognized one of the guys standing with us. At this point, one of them ran up, gave Waldo a hug and a handshake and stated "I've been looking for you my whole life." That one, Matt told us later, was new.

Not long after, we decided to head back and found one of our friends watching the Princess and the Frog in our upstairs CA's room. We finished it with them and then put in Anastasia for about half an hour befo

re we all decided we were too tired to watch any longer, said our goodnights and goodbyes and went to bed, all around 12:30.

Cleaning to Ke$ha and Bridget Jones

I'm not a neat freak by any means, my mother will be the first to vouch for that, she's often after me to clean the tornado alley that is my bedroom at home. There's just something so disgusting about a college dorm room though that when its dirty, even just a little bit, its grotesque.

Today after various complaints to each other and from our friends who stood only in the doorway, Colleen (my roommate) and I bit the bullet and got out the broom and laundry detergent. She took out the trash and recycling, I gathered all of our dishes. We took our individual laundry baskets down, started a load, turned on our designated cleaning music (a shuffle of Ke$ha and the Bridget Jones' Diary: Edge of Reason soundtrack) and then got down to the real work.

As of about two weeks ago, the fridge that she brought from home hasn't been working. We threw out the milk, but somehow we missed the fruit that we'd left inside. Those and the combination of the nectarines that were sitting on the desks had brought a swarm of gnats that were driving us crazy. So to combat them, I took all-purpose cleaner, borrowed Clorox wipes and Febreze and wiped down every surface I could reach, standing on a chair to get to the ones I couldn't.

Now I'm relaxing in the clean room, a fresh scent permeating the whole place, writing this while I wait for my laundry to finish. I'll probably actually fold it when I bring it upstairs and put it away immediately this time, and maybe the next. I do wonder how long it will last, though I'm sure my guess is far to optimistic.

One day at a time.

And away we go!

First blog post. Ever. This is big, this is bigger than big this is huge.

Well, not really.

Anyway, back to business.

It's officially a month into my freshman year of college, or it will be on Sunday. I've had classes for two and a half weeks now, made some great friends, cried when my parents left and then cried again when Mom came to

visit and then had to leave.

I'll just do a quick recap of what's happened so far:

August:

• Mom and Dad dropped me off at school, many tears ensued.
• I met some amazing people and had a tiring and packed full but awesome orientation experience.
• Started classes
• Met my swim teammates for the first time and started practicing.
• Collaborated with my incredible dorm/housemates to create an amazing rendition of the school's alma mater and a banner to represent our house at the First Year Cup. We lost everything except for the song, a bit of a no brainer since we are the performing arts college. Still, we're in second place overall.

September:

• Discovered the rope swing and just how pretty nature can be.

• Continued classes, forgot assignments, made them up and wrote my first college essay.
• Dealt with our first drunk person.
• Still have to deal with some drunk people.
• Mom visited
• Found employment in the costume shop as helper monkey/makeup lady. Turns out its actually a work study program which means I'm actually getting paid instead of just volunteering.

And now, four weeks in I have a group of the best friends I could hope to find. There's the inner circle, the whiteboard-hood (it can't really be a sisterhood because Matt's part of it) and the generally amazing people that live in the dorm and then the swim friends. All great people I'm so lucky to have found them and chosen this place.