So here I am--
Sep. 18th, 2004 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pipistrellafelixSitting on the floor of my dorm room (because they were out of 14' ethernet cables, and 7 isn't long enough to reach my desk), drinking scalding hot Earl Grey tea. My dorm room is fabulous...our beds used to be bunked but we rearranged everything, so now my bed (the taller one) is along the wall and hers is perpendicular, halfway underneath it. I have a whole big wardrobe to myself (drawers! drawers for clothes!) and a fantastic desk with drawers and a chair and everything (I know that sounds nerdy but for someone who's been sitting on a cinder block in front of a board, it's luxury); and bookshelves that hold all my class books plus Howl's Moving Castle, Good Omens, Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Tao te Ching. There are three postcards--Oscar, my darling, Will, my other darling, and the Kiss Outside the Hotel de Ville, Paris. There's a bulletin board on the wall... I have Revenge of the Goldfish and Radioactive Cats, the Workers in New York (I'm the Lindbergh baby!), three girls dancing, Helena Bonham Carter, a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II when she was seven, a picture of a man holding an umbrella over his guitar (I wrote 'a guitar over his umbrella'), an Amelie postcard and one of Audrey Hepburn, a card of the Friendship (double jib sails!), and at the bottom, Judy Dench as Titania (beautiful), Alan Rickman in Titus Andronicus (gorgeous), and Margaret's 'WHAT?' vampire picture. (It ended up so that Judy's looking to the right and Alan's looking to the right and the paper-bagged vampire is looking to the left and saying 'What?' and it worked out rather wonderfully). Judy and Alan are to remind me of Goal: Act at Stratford and Ashland. I have a Welsh Flag badge (Goal: More Travel) and an Oxford U Badge (Goal: Study there).
After that supremely and unnecessarily loquacious paragraph...I will be less so. Maybe.
So. Moved in on Friday. Bedding had not come yet, so I brought my sleeping bag. Made the whole thing just a little less homey. Brought everything in, met my roommate Danica, checked in and got my campus card and so on and so forth. There are 731 new freshpersons (as the pc would have it), which is...a lot. For me. But not too bad so far. Friday afternoon I didn't know many people (except Danica who has been very friendly) and was feeling sort of teary and away-from-home-for-a-long-time. Friday night I went to the OA Cabaret where the Orientation Advisors performed--ripoffs of SNL and reality tv, actually really funny. I walked there with a girl from my dorm who I randomly ran into on the stairs--and was reminded that I am not the insanely shy and underconfident person I was in sixth grade. Friends are there for the finding.
After the OA Cabaret was floor meetings; our RAs are cool and not uptight at all. Liz is the RA near me. Also Leah is on my floor (and I saw Felix and Shannon and Chane on campus).
Friday night I organized things and Danica and I flipped around on the internet (which she'd set up but I hadn't) and found places to go take ballroom dancing lessons. We're taking Salsa at the Washington Dance Club, starting in October. Whoo.
Saturday morning woke up early. Hit the snooze button. Woke up again, once I actually got out of bed it felt good to be awake in the morning. I was out of the dorm by eight, which is early-early for me; I had a big breakfast (yay yay yay for large breakfasts I don't have to cook!) and then we met up for Service Projects.
I was in a pretty silly group...fifteen people, all friendly and talkative (except for the guy who sat next to me on the bus, go figure). Tristan (who reminded me a bit of Michael in Camp--similar looks and goofy personality) insisted we play a name game or an icebreaker. So we played Two Truths and a Lie all the way to south Seattle. We were at Operational Emergency Center--which is a place people can come to pick up clothes and food and other things they need. They'd had a harvest day yesterday, and gave away a lot of produce...which meant that the parking lot in the back was full of damp cardboard boxes of rotting peaches and broccoli and bannanas and pears. So we dumped the fruit in large bins (oh the smell--it wasn't a wafting smell, it was an eveloping cloud that permeated my nostrils and clung with the persistence of a virus), and swept and shoveled rotten vegetables. Mmm. Pleasant. After lunch break the five of us who'd been shoveling rotten veggies got to go inside and sort baby clothing instead, which was fun--we got to look through boxes and boxes of clothes and pick out the best ones and sort them by age. After a while Tara and I got detailed back outside to flatten boxes--which is v. painful on the fingers when you have to rip them apart and it's cold. So the fingers hurt but I had a good conversation with Tara, who is from Hawaii and is a fine arts major and reminds me a little of Melissa-Pheonix and a little of some goths I met and a little of me.
I can't say I exactly enjoyed all the work I did. But I know I made a big difference, which is kind of the point. I think they do this at the beginning of the year partly to connect us to the service part of SU's mission statement, but also to drive home to us how lucky we all are. I was annoyed that my new bedding hadn't come in time, but really I'm fabulously lucky to get new bedding at all. So that was introspective. And good to remember.
Got back, chucked dirty jeans, took a shower...ahh, hot water is such a blessing. Showers v. spacious and pretty. Yay. I went to the bookstore and bought my ethernet cable and spent the rest of the afternoon fighting with requisite downloads and so forth. Later we went to small groups (with our OAs)...my OA is Mikee Mage. Which is a cool name. Also he is funny and likes musicals. And is the co-director of GSA. So cool. We met up with another small group and went to Jamba Juice...but it was closed. So we went to Tully's instead. And walked a block away from NWS...(ahhhh!). And chatted about things. I talked to a guy who is also in Honors--Kareem--who is also excited about classes starting, haha, I'm not the only philosophy nerd. Yes.
So now after rearranging our room and finally finishing the downloads, Danica is plotting to bring her CD player into the hall and starting a dance party because the floor's too quiet. ("I mean, come on, this is college. I'm here to have fun." She's funny. V. Californian. In a good way.)
So, it's been good. Quod erat demonstrandum (by my far too long post). (My mailbox is empty. *grin*) I think we might go dance party soon...or I might read the Iliad. Either one.
Love love love you all.
After that supremely and unnecessarily loquacious paragraph...I will be less so. Maybe.
So. Moved in on Friday. Bedding had not come yet, so I brought my sleeping bag. Made the whole thing just a little less homey. Brought everything in, met my roommate Danica, checked in and got my campus card and so on and so forth. There are 731 new freshpersons (as the pc would have it), which is...a lot. For me. But not too bad so far. Friday afternoon I didn't know many people (except Danica who has been very friendly) and was feeling sort of teary and away-from-home-for-a-long-time. Friday night I went to the OA Cabaret where the Orientation Advisors performed--ripoffs of SNL and reality tv, actually really funny. I walked there with a girl from my dorm who I randomly ran into on the stairs--and was reminded that I am not the insanely shy and underconfident person I was in sixth grade. Friends are there for the finding.
After the OA Cabaret was floor meetings; our RAs are cool and not uptight at all. Liz is the RA near me. Also Leah is on my floor (and I saw Felix and Shannon and Chane on campus).
Friday night I organized things and Danica and I flipped around on the internet (which she'd set up but I hadn't) and found places to go take ballroom dancing lessons. We're taking Salsa at the Washington Dance Club, starting in October. Whoo.
Saturday morning woke up early. Hit the snooze button. Woke up again, once I actually got out of bed it felt good to be awake in the morning. I was out of the dorm by eight, which is early-early for me; I had a big breakfast (yay yay yay for large breakfasts I don't have to cook!) and then we met up for Service Projects.
I was in a pretty silly group...fifteen people, all friendly and talkative (except for the guy who sat next to me on the bus, go figure). Tristan (who reminded me a bit of Michael in Camp--similar looks and goofy personality) insisted we play a name game or an icebreaker. So we played Two Truths and a Lie all the way to south Seattle. We were at Operational Emergency Center--which is a place people can come to pick up clothes and food and other things they need. They'd had a harvest day yesterday, and gave away a lot of produce...which meant that the parking lot in the back was full of damp cardboard boxes of rotting peaches and broccoli and bannanas and pears. So we dumped the fruit in large bins (oh the smell--it wasn't a wafting smell, it was an eveloping cloud that permeated my nostrils and clung with the persistence of a virus), and swept and shoveled rotten vegetables. Mmm. Pleasant. After lunch break the five of us who'd been shoveling rotten veggies got to go inside and sort baby clothing instead, which was fun--we got to look through boxes and boxes of clothes and pick out the best ones and sort them by age. After a while Tara and I got detailed back outside to flatten boxes--which is v. painful on the fingers when you have to rip them apart and it's cold. So the fingers hurt but I had a good conversation with Tara, who is from Hawaii and is a fine arts major and reminds me a little of Melissa-Pheonix and a little of some goths I met and a little of me.
I can't say I exactly enjoyed all the work I did. But I know I made a big difference, which is kind of the point. I think they do this at the beginning of the year partly to connect us to the service part of SU's mission statement, but also to drive home to us how lucky we all are. I was annoyed that my new bedding hadn't come in time, but really I'm fabulously lucky to get new bedding at all. So that was introspective. And good to remember.
Got back, chucked dirty jeans, took a shower...ahh, hot water is such a blessing. Showers v. spacious and pretty. Yay. I went to the bookstore and bought my ethernet cable and spent the rest of the afternoon fighting with requisite downloads and so forth. Later we went to small groups (with our OAs)...my OA is Mikee Mage. Which is a cool name. Also he is funny and likes musicals. And is the co-director of GSA. So cool. We met up with another small group and went to Jamba Juice...but it was closed. So we went to Tully's instead. And walked a block away from NWS...(ahhhh!). And chatted about things. I talked to a guy who is also in Honors--Kareem--who is also excited about classes starting, haha, I'm not the only philosophy nerd. Yes.
So now after rearranging our room and finally finishing the downloads, Danica is plotting to bring her CD player into the hall and starting a dance party because the floor's too quiet. ("I mean, come on, this is college. I'm here to have fun." She's funny. V. Californian. In a good way.)
So, it's been good. Quod erat demonstrandum (by my far too long post). (My mailbox is empty. *grin*) I think we might go dance party soon...or I might read the Iliad. Either one.
Love love love you all.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 06:56 pm (UTC)I LOVE YOU! xoxo ac
no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 07:43 pm (UTC)I envy you people who actually have your classes! I am still choosing 4/14 to take.
P
no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 09:40 pm (UTC)