OK. So I'm starting to freak out a little.
I've been browsing the Swansea University Web site where I'll be studying/living, and it has finally hit me that it's going to be like I'm a freshman again. Not even a freshman, but a fresher
as the British say. Dang it.
I just got things all figured out.
Swansea has a student union, and I was on their Web page where they have photo galleries of what I hear are sensational socials ([url=http://www.swansea-union.co.uk/]http://www.swansea-union.co.uk/[/url]). But instead of thinking about how great those parties might be, I'm remembering what it was like my freshman year when I didn't yet know any upperclassmen, wasn't brave enough to meander into a random kegger on Palmer or Mill and most definitely didn't have a fake I.D.
Then came a flashback of wandering through Gordy trying to find my first Italian class. Next was the memory of working up the nerve to answer questions in my first journalism class, praying that no one would find out that I was a freshman who managed to slip into newswriting my first quarter.
Buying my first textbooks at College Bookstore was an adventure.
Applying for my first job at The Post was my first step toward actually practicing journalism.
And figuring out my RA wasn't going to kill me for waking her up at 1 a.m. when I locked myself out for the second time in one weekend was something I won't forget.
Dramatic, I know. But they're lasting memories and everyone has them in one form or another.
Oh yeah, and then there was that easy task of making friends.
Sure, by winter quarter most of the above seemed like a million years ago and by spring, as usual for the freshman class, I blended right in with the sophomores. I knew campus like I'd been born there, I had my favorite hangouts and my favorite friends and if someone challenged me to a game of cornhole, I grabbed a partner and said Bring it on.
I'd figured out how to pretend I knew where the bathroom was at each house party I ventured into. I'd made upperclassmen friends who scored a bottle of coconut rum for me when I watched chick flicks in the dorms with my girlfriends. Or at least one of my girlfriends could, which usually was the case.
It felt strangely wrong after I visited OU the first weekend before classes this year to go past the State Street exit on 33 where I would normally veer off to take on Wal-Mart for my weekly grocery trip. Instead, I went back north to finish up my internship, pack and agonize over the unknown for the next few weeks before throwing myself into a situation that I only think I'm familiar with and will most likely realize that I'm really not. And then I'll have to figure it all out. Again.
What was I thinking when I decided to leave OU my senior year, Fall Quarter, primetime to cruise the campus?
Probably that this might be my last chance to travel through Europe without any major commitments at home and that it'll be one hell of a time.
Plus, I've already got three years of college under my belt. It can't be that different.
Right?
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Jessica Cuffman
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