Back to school

Today was move-in day for freshman dorms here on campus.  Since I am teaching a section of a class for a dorm-community (where all the kids live together) I worked a shift during move-in, greeting parents and kids and answering questions.  It went pretty well, I guarded a couple of piles of stuff while parents made trips up and down the stairs, and I met several of the students in my class.  My only major failure as a volunteer was when I attempted to give directions to Target.  I kept trying to explain how to get there and finally the dad in the family said "that's ok, I'm sure we'll find it".  But I guess we all know, I am not good at directions.

The highlight of the day for me was when I was talking to one of the dads.  He had hauled all his daughter's stuff up the stairs and was just shuffling around the hallway waiting for her and her mom to get everything unpacked.  In an attempt to make conversation, he asked me "So, are you a sophomore?".  HA HA!  I think he was pretty relieved when I said "no, I'm staff".  I can't imagine that any parent would feel that great dropping their precious oldest child off at a college full of knocked-up, 30+ year old sophomores :)

It was kind of fun to see all the crap that the students were trying to cram into their little dorm rooms.  A couple of the guys showed up with just a comforter and a duffel bag full of clothes, but most kids had a ton of stuff.  One girl brought her grandfather with her to move in and he kept going on and on about all of the refrigerators and microwaves.  There were several stories about dorm rooms back "in the day" and musing about what the university must be paying in electricity for all these kids. 

This is my last weekend "off" before classes start on Monday.  I still have some work to do to get my classes ready, and then we'll probably spend most of the rest of the weekend taking care of stuff around the house.  I get to do my school supply shopping trip to Staples on Saturday, so that is always an exciting day for me.  We have it all worked out this year where Jeremy will drop me off at Staples and then go kill an hour at Home Depot before he picks me back up.  He's pretty adamant that he'd rather remove his own appendix with a rusty spork than spend time in an office supply store with me.  It's not my fault he can't appreciate a quality office supply!