Prentice Hall Student Success SuperSite

One Student's Journey

Moving In

Wow!

That's the only word I can think of that describes the past few days.

After a seven-hour drive, most of which I missed while trying to catch up on my sleep, we finally got to Durham last Tuesday. The first thing I did was ask to drive over to my dorm. Apparently I wasn't the only one - the campus was littered with equally lost and clueless freshmen. (I had been worried that dragging a U-haul behind the family van was not the coolest way to make an entrance, so I started to feel better when I saw all the other vans, some of them tugging along their own U-hauls.)

We went to our hotel, and sure enough, it was packed with "Dukies" trying to get their belongings repacked and have one last family bonding session before move-in day. After dinner with my roommate and her mom at the Magnolia Grill, I started to get a little nervous. But looking around the hotel room and checking the bedside clock every five minutes didn't do much to calm me. I gave up and went to bed.

The first day was one of the most hectic I've ever known, what with unpacking everything I owned and then trying to fit it into 8 millimeters of space at 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Actually, I can't complain much about the lovely room from which I'm writing this column. The size isn't too bad, and we've made it look downright homey with Duke blue carpet, posters plastered on the walls, and magnetic poetry on the microfridge. And I do love living in a massive dorm. But the heat! G-A (my dorm, otherwise known as the Center of the Universe) isn't air-conditioned, so the fans in my room have to work overtime cooling it down.

The Countdown 8/25
Moving in 9/1
Going to Class 9/8
Rated PG 9/15
Athletes Foot in Mouth 9/22
Shaken Not Stirred 9/29
Sleeping with the Enemy 10/6
Withdrawal Symptoms 10/13
Why Duke? 10/20
Par-ants Weekend 10/27
Halloween 11/3
Who Am I? 11/10
Travel Guide 11/17
Give Me a Break 11/24
Thank You 12/1
Campus Camp-out 12/8
Apply Yourself 12/15
Rushing Back to School 1/26
Chi-Omega Land 2/2
Apply Yourself #2 2/9
Three Month Itch 2/16
School Daze 2/23
Politics and Popularity 3/2
They Came They Saw, They Choked 3/9
Dating at Duke 3/16
Weekly Update 3/30
Beep Beep 4/6
Extra,Extra 4/13
Room to Move 4/20
End of the Innocense 4/27
Help Me 5/1
The Last Hurrah 5/8

But I wouldn't trade it for the world. The people in my dorm have really gelled, so to speak. My hall rocks, and everyone has been completely friendly. Then again, it's hard to avoid meeting people here, so it's no surprise that it already feels like home. As I write this column, my roommate is talking to me, and I have a promise from my friend next door that she's coming over to visit in a few minutes. (Oops, there she is in the doorway, I spoke too soon!) Then there are the people I have to call, whose numbers are scribbled on Post-it Notes floating around the room, occasionally scattered by the breezes from the fans.

Of course, there are some major differences between my new home and my old one. As the RAs said at our first dorm meeting, freedom takes on a completely different meaning here. There aren't frat parties every night back home, and sharing a building with 196 people is slightly strange compared to living with two.

But I think the orientation process has done its job after all. There have been moments where I've felt completely lost, some of them literal. Trust me, sometimes campus maps just don't help. Overall, though, I do feel that I've gotten settled in. Class starts in a few days, once again bringing upheaval to my nice, semi-organized life. Wish me luck!