College. The next BIG STEP?
Just watch your step, as your foot hits terra ferma; new people, housing, freedoms, and opportunities will surround you, along with new responsibilities. Your universe is now 100 square feet of living space, your meals are not “just like Mom’s,” and your classes are longer, with double the workload.
When you arrive on campus, you are entering a new dimension, a place where time is scarce and sound invades your room through neighboring walls. A world where freshmen walk and upperclassmen ride.
It begins with your dorm and room assignment, information you’ve been anxiously anticipating, yet somehow its arrival provides no calm. Could it be that anticipation far exceeds realization? Is there another source of your anxiety? Could it be the dreaded shopping and decorating for your dorm? One of the most dramatic changes in your young life, is the thought that you’re finally on your own.
To complete this daunting decorating assignment, you must travel to the edge of the galaxy (or Galleria) to thousands of other stores before you set foot into the wonderful world of Linens ‘N Things.
Now we all know that the linens go on the bed. It’s the “things” that seem to clutter up our rooms. They are tripped over, pushed aside, stepped on, broken and occasionally inflict injury.
The worst time to shop for these items is the summer before college. Entering the mall, a rush of cool air greets you, as you escape the muggy heat of August. Leaving is the problem. As you exit the automatic doors, and enter the un-air-conditioned world, it’s like walking outside of the moon-base without your oxygen helmet on. You are choked by the humidity of the external world.
Once you have moved your “things” in, the “living together” begins. Roommates, and survival with other members of the species is always smoother if one abides by the basic tenets presented in kindergarten. They are so simple, so basic, and so true. They are: sharing is caring, clean up your mess, don’t touch what’s not yours, two inches beyond your nose is the end of “your space”, make good use of your time, and don’t run with scissors.
Opportunities to screw up in college abound due in part to the rather high incidence of firsts experienced by incoming freshmen. This starts with the first time you do laundry in the dorm and notice that the washing machine options for operation differ from those at home.
Then there’s the first time that you are really in charge of yourself. When you wake up, when you go to bed, when you go bathe, how you manage all your own time, and what you eat.
Then there are the list of administrative “don’t brings.” The torch lights and the George Forman Grills, both of which invoke images of burgers and dorms burnt in just under ten minutes.
Shopping done, moving over, roommates adjusted, surviving the gauntlet of firsts, and abiding by the campus list of don’ts – in the end we all begin as freshmen. Small fish in a big pond. The pond is much wider now, farther away from home, yet it’s still a pond, and one in which we were all meant to swim through living, growing, and journeying toward our destiny.
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