Welcome to the pond

College Memories

Part Two:

Part one can be found here.

I loved coming back to campus every fall. It's such a great place to be, and it feels like coming home whenever I go there. When I attended school there, it was almost literally coming home again because I lived on campus for eight months out of the year or however long it is. It was so refreshing to come back and be somewhere I'm very comfortable. It was nice seeing all the buildings and open spaces, the student union, the squirrels running around. It was nice coming to the lobby of Carson Hall, the place where many students eat and get their mail (and the place I lived two years of my years at the university). It was just refreshing to go through the whole process another year and settle in.

Once all of my stuff was put in my room, it was time to unpack. I'd usually have some music going while I chose places to put everything. The computer was the main thing to set up, and it was always cool to set it up and hook everything up and turn it on. The dorms at the university have an incredibly fast internet connection, so I was always excited to surf the web and have everything load FAST!

After unpacking, which never really took all that long, I'd either relax in my room or go downstairs to eat. Of course I'd check the mail and find the usual "welcome back to school" things the university gives you. Then it was time to go into the cafeteria and have that first meal. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet and, even though it wasn't always that great, it was comforting to go through that routine again. There was always anticipation about what would be served for your first dinner meal. Hopefully it would be something good! That first night would be the beginning of many meals a student would eat over the course of the school year.

Move-in week was the week before school, so I'd usually have anywhere from three to five days to just relax and settle back into the swing of things. That was nice, because it allowed time to enjoy the campus and enjoy the dorm room before the real studying began. At some point, I'd go to the bookstore and buy whatever books I knew I needed for upcoming classes. That's another story entirely and it's somewhere in the archives. Book buying is a stressful experience, and then there's the long walk back to the room with a huge bag full of textbooks. When I got back, I'd always take a glance at each book to see what was in store for me during the upcoming term.

It was nice just to enjoy the campus before classes started. Maybe I'd take a walk around and see all my favorite spots. I'd browse in the shops near campus and usually get a new CD to listen to from the music store. Maybe I'd go out to eat at one of the local restaurants. I'd always make time for my favorite fast food stop, Burger King, which was not too far from the dorms. Saturday would bring a football game, the first game where the student section would be full. No matter what I did that weekend, it was always enjoyable.

Monday would come, and with it would come the first classes of the school year. That part wasn't all that hard. If I didn't know where my classes were, I'd always check things out the week before classes began. That first day would bring you together with all the other students, anxiously waiting to find out what's on the syllabus and what the professor is like. Homework would usually be assigned right from the get-go, so relaxation time was over. The school year had begun and with it came the reading assignments and thoughts of upcoming papers and tests.
I'm out of college now, but I still enjoy remembering what back-to-school was like. I love being on the University of Oregon campus and I did enjoy staying in the dorms, even with the negative stuff like late night partiers and dirty bathrooms. Back to school time means being young, alive, and embracing the school year full on. It was always a great time for me and I remember it all very fondly.