measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remembering college... I have a LiveJournal account to connect with some people in the penpalling world aside from my Diary-X account and backup on Diaryland (the latter two being so I can connect and read friends who won't use DX). Through Livejournal, I discovered a group for Boston University students-- past and present. Lately, of course, it's been filled with a lot of incoming freshmen getting their room assignments. So far two who have posted were on my freshman floors... or the ones I spent oodles of time on. Ah yes, Warren Towers... dear old floor 11C. I spent two years there-- one in a standard double room made of cinderblock walls, ugly brown carpet (which was replaced the summer after freshman year), and built-in furniture. The other year I had a single to myself that rivaled a broom closet in size. It maybe was 6x10 feet at most. The bed was the width of the room. Cozy. But it was mine. Anyway... I digress. Hearing the apprehension of the incoming freshman is amusing now-- only because I remember being in the same position when I received that same housing assignment letter ten years ago this month, with my freshman year roommate's name and address printed on the letter. I was in California at the time, spending my summer month with my mom before heading back and packing for school. And with odd timing, Samantha has started up a college project on her university-given webspace dealing with those kinds of things-- frosh fears, transitions from college, etc. I admit, a lot of my feelings were already started with the high school reunion stuff. But now I'm realizing that I'm only a few weeks from actually having moved to Massachusetts as well. I've been here TEN YEARS. It doesn't feel that long. And oddly, I still remember the day that I came here. I remember fighting tears (mostly of nerves) as the plane took off in Billings, watching the rolling sandstone hills that line the Yellowstone fade from view. I remember touching down in Boston, getting into the cab, and seeing the drive along Storrow Drive for the first time-- a view that would become soothing and a welcome homecoming for the years afterward. I remember opening the door to my dorm room for the first time. The window was open. The sun was shining. The drab curtains billowed in the breeze. The room looked so small. It was small-- 10x12 feet for two people. But it became cozy and homey over the next year, and I didn't mind the lack of space. I remember being overwhelmed by the colors in Boston. My dad and I walked down by the Christian Science center that week-- little did I know that in only a few years, I'd be living only a block from it, sitting by that pool often to read. I remember not being able to understand a lot of people who had New England accents. I thought it amusing that I had better understanding of immigrants with thick foreign accents than I did the New England natives. I came to Boston blindly. I'd never come to orientation. Never came to even see the college before I applied. I'd only flown into Boston's airport once, but had never been in the city before. I applied to three colleges-- BU, Syracuse, and the University of Michigan. My application for UM missed the deadline, so it was ignored. Syracuse accepted me for English. BU accepted me for journalism. I figured if I hated it, I could always come home and attend either the University of Montana or Montana State, since they had open, rotating admissions for in-state students. And my parents have this weird notion that I am both fearful and unwilling to take risky changes in my life. Uh-huh. It is so funny, though, hearing how worried people are about their roommates, about the dorms, about the space. Most of me is fighting the urge to roll my eyes, remembering a couple of girls on my floor who could only be classified as prima donna's. It's hard to explain to incoming freshmen that not only is the room assignment only for one school year, but that in reality, you're often not in your rooms anyway, and when you are, the door's open so everyone's coming in and out of there. :) But I was where they were, ten years ago. And I'm in denial that it's been a decade. I feel old. 10:14 a.m. - 09 July 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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