It is 12:06 p.m. as I start this post, I really should either be studying or eating lunch. But since I already had lunch a half hour ago, and haven't really been able to get much headway on studying this morning....well, here I sit at my desk in my dorm, beginning a new blog post on Dad's laptop.
But, anyway, I've been a college student for about three weeks or so now. It's a little weird, to be honest. No, I'm not talking about the many hours a day reading and absorbing information on your own....I'm used to that. But the "going-to-class" part, that's a little odd. Good, though, to have a schedule to follow(I like schedules, they make life run so much more smoothly), the "sitting-in-class-and-listening-attentively, pretending-like-I've-done-this-all-my-life" is what's been a little hard to get used to. That's probably exactly backwards than it is for most people. I still didn't really like the RBC experience much, but I think it was worth it, it's been nice to know a few people, share a few classes with those people.
And the cafeteria food....well, it's not that it isn't good, at least edible; it's just that it's so unhealthy. Everywhere you look, carbs, carbs, carbohydrates....with like a tiny amount of protein follow it up with. True, it's much, much cheaper to deliver say, potatoes and bread, to a large audience than it is to do the same with beef or chicken, but for the people eating it...
My fridge is stocked full of Diet Coke, water, peanut butter, cheese, and yogurt, in about that order. And I have a box of protein bars in a drawer. So I'm not dying or anything yet. :)
Took a little while to get used to all the walking necessary to get from place to place, did some exploring of the campus day after orientation, got a rough idea of where everything was and how long it took to get from one place to another, done more exploring as I've had time since. Haven't really measured or anything, but I think I'm covering three to five miles a day just in ordinary activities, and that's not counting anything extra I might do.
Starting to know a few people on my floor and in my dorm, that's kinda cool. And people around campus are always hollering "Hey Wes!", things like that. (Half the time, I have no idea who they are, but just smile and say something equally Mayberry-like in response.) I even got called Caleb last night by my RA as I went to check my mailbox. In a minute, he pokes his head out the office. "Your name is Caleb, right?" "Nope! It's Wesley. But I have a brother named Caleb, so I'm used to being called that." "Oh. I totally have you mixed up with another guy, then, cause I've been calling him Wesley all this time...." Anyway, name issues aside, it's really, really QUIET in here most of the time. Leonard Kessler's Owl would fit in great at Ross Hall. It's awful! Just...silence. Or really, really dim noises, so you only have your thoughts to notice, and the bare white concrete walls to look at. Hard to adjust to. And, my neighbor watches TV late at night, so when I'm trying to get some sleep, THEN it's noisy, but....oh well. Getting used to that, too. And the showers take about ten minutes to heat up, lot of pipes to run through to get all the way up here on the fifth floor. And the radio reception isn't that great in here, and the CD player works two-thirds of the time. So, pretty much, here's a quick description of my dorm room: A- Silent. B- Bare. C- Spotless.
Living alone(no roommate, nobody wanted this floor), there's never anything to clean! Nothing to pick up, nobody to remind to do their laundry, nothin'. Not even any trash to haul out. So I'm discovering all this extra energy that I didn't know I had, since it doesn't have any outlet...
So I've started just going and running somewhere. Down to the intramural fields, through the parking lot, racing squirrels...it's not much, can't go very far or for very long, but it's kinda fun. And it keeps me busy. (Almost.) When things just get too mental-hospital like or I get sick and tired of talking to myself while reading Plato, I sail up and down the staircase a couple times as fast as possible. Five flights of stairs makes a terrific hamster wheel, if anybody's curious.
And I've been playing a lot of Ultimate Frisbee. There's games set about three times a week, I try to play at least once a week. I'm not that good, too short to play well, but it's fun, getting to know some good guys through that. Right now I'm kind of that one freshman kid, the last person nobody really wants to have on their team, whatever help I can give usually comes on defense and from being the only guy who wears a watch. But that'll change over time, just gotta keep practicing and improving. Pretty low-key atmosphere, a little like the Backyard Sports series come to life.
(Continued at 4:58 p.m...) Did I mention that the air-conditioning is a little weird? Half the places it's out, creating massive airtight boxes, and then where it is on, it's subzero temperatures. All through the dorms and classroom buildings. Football 's interesting here so far, I'd never been to a game anywhere as a student. I got to study the atmosphere, too; besides watch the game. Planning to watch some soccer Friday night.
There was a fire in our building Monday night, that wasn't very fun. At all. Smoke alarms are some of the worst sounds on Earth. The entire building was evacuated, far too slowly, and then nobody knew where the fire was or how it started. The firefighters got it put out after about 45 minutes, most people were laughing and joking around with each other. There was this odd, detached kind of calmness as I was running out(again, barefoot with only my phone), and then once outside I started seeing flashbacks. And I was already tired from studying hard all day and a little homesick...bleah.
In English, our Comp I teacher was telling us about the backbone of story plotlines, we ended up discussing Star Wars for 45 minutes, it was awesome. But he mentioned that we, as college students, are kind of in an exile, cast out from the worlds that we knew, on a quest for knowledge. It's kind of hard being an exile, ya know? (Robinson Crusoe, Moses, Swiss Family Robinson, that guy in Castaway, Simba, Hercules, Thor, etc...) I mean, I know that God will get me through whatever I'm facing/going to face, because He's done it so many times in the past. It's just sometimes a little hard to remember that when you're just trying to keep your head above water. Some days go easier than others, but it's a fight to stay focused on that day's tasks and things. I mean, it's my job; shouldn't I try to give it the best effort I can?
A lot of the guys I play Frisbee with are involved in Campus Christian Fellowship(CCF), that's about the only thing I've gotten involved in this semester(Intramural sports...not this time.). It's sort of like a youth group for college students, most run by college students, with some guidance. Think I'm gonna help with the worship music there, started that for the first time Tuesday, it went okay. Also, I found a pretty good church to go to here in town, so that's good.
Had my first test Wednesday, in MassComm. I just kind of took it like I did the SAT, or all those drama programs I did in middle school: Go over the material, memorize it, understand it, then repeat eighteen times, and when it's time, try to relax as much as possible and let what you know take over. I got a 94 out of a possible 99, so I was happy with it.
College is it's own little bubble, it's a weird concept. I didn't hear about Neil Armstrong's death until a few days later, same thing with Randy Jackson being fired as AI judge, not to mention football scores. Instead, I've helped guide a blind man places, read billboards chalked on the sidewalk, tagged along on trips to eat tacos and cherry crisp after church, shot pool, and played my guitar on the front porch. This is about what the first few weeks of college has been like.
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