That's my planner, and that's me and my family :) Although my bug won't really be moving to Milwaukee :(, it was just a cuter doodle than us in my dad's truck. And in case my sloppy handwriting has thrown you, the first appointment of the day is to "wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy!"
College is what you make of it. The best advice I can give a college freshman is to get your smiling face out there to meet as many new friends as possible. You never know when you’ll meet a lifelong friend. I met some of my best friends last year standing in a line for a hotdog.
Get involved with the community. Find a cause that you believe in and commit to it, even if it’s just once a week. Working for a cause will give you a tie to your new community that life on campus can’t give you, it will get your focus off of your own life’s stressors, and you might get more out of it than you ever bargained for (learning, personal growth, networking).
Get involved with your resident hall’s activities and meetings. Get to know the people in your building. Resident hall meetings might not sound like the most exciting thing ever, but they are a great way to meet people. Make these people your family and your best friends and I promise you won’t be nearly as homesick in the long run. And if you run into a problem, any problem really, talk to your resident assistant about it. They are a great resource to you. And if for some reason you don't feel comfortable talking to your RA, or maybe yours is gone for the day, by all means go find another, I'm sure they would be happy to help you out. RAs are helpful and nice like that.
Try new things, on and off campus. Expand your awareness of different cultures, sports, art forms, politics…. This is what college is all about! Go to random new clubs for the free food and come out with a new hobby, learn to salsa dance, join a meditation group and see if you can sit still and not think for an hour... Whatever floats your boat! Get outside your comfort zone though.
Last year I was challenged by my religions professor to attend prayer at the masjid (Arabic word for "mosque" meaning place of prostration - prayer) with one of my best friends in Rochester, a Muslim originally from Sudan. I learned more that day than I have in most of my life, both about my community and about myself. It threw me into a different culture and it gave me first hand experience with the glares and other forms of discrimination you get just for dressing like a Muslim, even in a fairly progressive city... Within a few minutes of changing into a traditional dress and hijab (headscarf) one woman in Culver's bathroom was too scared to even walk past me. I was in the same city I'd grown up in, but I was being treated completely differently.
Sure I was scared to dress like this, surround myself with people who weren't speaking English, and I tripped over the hem of my dress walking up the parking ramp's stairs twice, but I wouldn’t trade that day for the world. I felt like I was in a different world seeing out of someone else's eyes, and I loved every minute of it.
That's me shopping at the Red Sea International African Mall across the street from the Abu-bakar Sidiq Masjid. Most people in Rochester, Minnesota don't even know we have an African Mall, I sure didn't! Turns out it's a great place to find cheap pashmina scarfs (sooo soft!) and delicious Kenyan tea... And that rug I am holding is a prayer rug, Muslims stand, kneel, and prostrate on them during prayer. Muslims pray facing Mecca, Saudi Arabia, specifically towards a building with a cube in the middle called the Kaaba. This prayer rug has a compass (all in arabic and totally impossible to read, even to my friends who speak Arabic) to assist you in figuring out what direction you should be praying as you travel. I thought it was pretty spiffy.
Best of luck with your packing :-)
Tina
