New year, new friends, new experiences, and most importantly (in the context of this post) – new dorm! Last year, I explained that UR assigns second, third, and fourth year housing based on a lottery system. You and your roommate/s are each assigned a lottery number at random, which represents your spot in line for selecting the room or, in the case of seniors, apartment of your choice. Incoming freshmen are assigned to their rooms by the housing department and, barring special cases, are not given opportunity to select a specific room or dorm building. Whenever you find out where you’ll be living, I’m sure you’ll be curious about the dimensions of your room and its proximity to doors, staircases, and even bathrooms. Just type the name of any dorm into the search box on the UR website and it will provide you with photos and floor plans - it’s the perfect place to check all that out!Last year, my roommate and I both had relatively low (as in about 10th from the bottom) lottery numbers. Luckily, we were able to snag a room in Robins that was a fairly decent size. Unluckily, University of Richmond received a record number of responses from the income freshman class and we got kicked out! UR was on top of things, though, and moved us into an upperclassmen building that was supposed to be under renovations all this year. Instead of waiting for fall, the university simply fixed Jeter up over the summer, patching up walls, adding new windows, and installing new carpet. We’re on the same side of the lake as Robins, about twenty feet closer to Dhall/the academic buildings and twenty feet further from the gym. Quite alright by me!Our room, we have decided, can only be described by one word: cozy. “Tight” or “small” implies that the space feels restrictive, which is by no means the case. It took more than one attempt to arrange the room so that all of our storage bins and piles of clothing fit away nicely, but we got it done eventually.Here’s a few pictures so that you can see about what a dorm room looks like! My first or second post from last year has pictures from my much larger room in Moore, if you’re interested.
This is my bed, desk, and bookshelf. As you can see, I’m a poster fiend and insist that every free inch of my walls be covered with some sort of decoration. Apparently, only 10% of the walls are allowed to be covered because it is a safety hazard so I’ve since been told to remove some of them. I highly recommend buying a few cinderblocks to prop up your bed if you don’t choose to loft it – they create a lot of extra space and, unless you’re very short, you won’t notice the minute amount of extra effort you have to put forth hopping onto it.
Instead of two closets, we have a closet and a wardrobe. That’s the skinny brown structure beside my mirror/dresser combo. It’s not very spacious…at all…but I don’t have much that I hang up so all’s well! I’m not sure what will happen this winter when I bring in all my bulky coats, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I debated cleaning up my general study area, but figured that leaving it like this was more realistic. Please notice that it is well stocked with food, absolutely none of which is healthy. Yumm.Enjoy this week! We’ve had some beautiful weather in Richmond, and I’m hoping it keeps up!** Sorry about the awkward lack of spaces between paragraphs, photos and even some words! There’s something up with my blog website…**
Archive for the 'Move-in' Category
According to “Y’all,” a skit from UR’s New Faces 08 performance, no southern woman in her right mind would dare break the cardinal rule of fashion: no white after Labor Day. I guess the Westhampton College class of 2012 (and all the classes before it) must’ve missed the memo. Last weekend, senior and first-year women attended Proclamation Night. Save for the few rebels who wore bright green or even multi-colored garments, the freshmen girls sported white for the traditional ceremony.
We lined up at 5:45 (a full hour and fifteen minutes early) to have our picture taken as a class. The wait was excessive, but, as anyone who’s ever had to photograph girls knows, it’s an intense process. As soon as the photographer got his camera poised and ready, there was a huge flourish as every one of the 350 female freshmen reached instinctively upward to fix her hair. I was put in the tallest height group thanks to my two-inch heels and had to stand on a very wobbly chair in the back row. While I never managed to fall off completely, moving my hands enough to toss my hair back nearly threw me.
Proclamation night itself began in the Chapel with the presentation of the daisy chain. Seniors in their black graduation gowns sat opposite the freshmen while various speakers offered words of wisdom. For first-years, most of the ceremony consisted of writing a letter to their future selves. Seniors recieved the letters they wrote and two read theirs out loud as examples. Needless to say, neither one of them was able to read their letter in the presence of the dean without a little off the cuff censorship. ..The rest of the program consisted of lighting candles and signing the honor pledge, making the class of 2012 official members of Westhampton College!
Even though Proclamtion Night ate up a huge chunk of my homework time. seeing the campus, and especially D-hall, covered with girls in their flowing white sundresses was pretty cool. For the first time since orientation, you could say without hesitation who on campus was a freshman. Besides, what girl refuses a chance to dress up? With prom and homecoming as things of the past, we’ve got to seize every chance we have! Last year, they told me that while white is traditionally worn to Proclamation, all colors of dress are encouraged. Then I came to UR and saw photos in which practically no one was wearing anything darker than beige. My advice is to just wear white, because everyone else is going to. It’s not about conforming, it’s about taking part in a “ye olde” University of Richmond tradition and experiencing a little class unity. I found my dress at Target the day before for $11.50 , so don’t worry if cost is an issue!
In other news, today was marked by a shocking realization. I’ve just completed my first month of college. I’m 30-some days into that experience every teenager can’t wait to have and every adult longs to get back to. It’s incredible - I love it so much. To those seniors in highschool who are struggling to maintain focus in class and looking forward to a winter break filled with application essays, good luck. When you get to be where I am next year, you won’t even be able to remember what it felt like re-typing your name and address a hundred times or describing an “experience that was meaningful to you.” Even though I’m from Richmond, I’m glad I decided to live on campus. Although struggling not to touch the walls in the shower and using a hall-style bathroom isn’t the picture of luxury, living a few doors down from your friends and having the oppurtunity to just hang out whenever you want to makes it all worthwhile. I feel like a real, legit person when I pick up a box of cereal and half-liter of milk from ETC or wash my own sheets. It sounds ridiculous (it is ridiculous), but that’s how I feel! I’ve only been sick once, and it wasn’t that bad. I managed to drag myself to class in the mornings and slept most of the afternoons. I actually called my aunt at one point though and told her I needed someone to feel sorry for me - ha ha. The only awkward part of being sick was getting up at night and leaving my room to cough so I wouldn’t wake my roommate! The door to the bathroom in our hall sticks, and I got into the habit of ramming myself into it instead of taking the time to push slowly. I probably made more noise body-slamming the door than I would have in my bed wheezing.
Here’s a few pictures of my dorm in case you’re wondering what the rooms look like. Ours is pretty average in size - some are bigger, but very few are much smaller. I just took these of my half of the room. I’ll try to get some wider shots, but I couldn’t figure out where to stand.
My bed/wall/bookshelf - I got the bulleting board ahead of time, but most of the posters were from an on-campus sale within the first two weeks of school.
The closet - each roomie gets their own! We had to stick the fridge in mine due to limited space…Notice the quintessential college girl SpiderCard holder/Key ring in the bottom corner of the picture.
This window is literally my favorite feature of the entire room! And last, but not least…
The dressers. They’re a decent size, but you should definately get some under-bed storage drawers!
I hope this has been even remotely interesting/informative. It has certainly been long. Have a good week!
College is already a blast, and I’m only three days in.
Move-in day seemed like the sort of experience that should have been incredibly awkward – the kind you’re excited for and dread all at once. You figure that you’ll check in, cart your storage bins and cardboard boxes clumsily into the dorm, and dismiss your parents as soon as possible. Not so. No one knows what they’re doing more or less at all, so nobody cares when you ask for directions to the same place four times or spill an entire bowl of Reese Puffs on the D-hall floor. Parents stay well into the afternoon, and everyone’s mother cries. Some are just a bit more discrete than others…
Everything I “needed” for college packed and ready to go! Surprisingly, it all fit in my room and I was even able to go back for more clothes.
The nice thing about goodbyes is that they’re typically followed by plenty of hellos. I’ve met a lot of people in the past few days, most of whose names I proceeded to forget upon hearing. I’m forever in fear of introducing myself to someone I’ve met before and it’s quite possible that I’ve done it already. Our halls are broken down into orientation groups, and each has two orientation advisors. They’re equipped with plenty of ice-breakers and suggest we keep an open mind during the various activites. We know that we all would rather be out on our own than listing off which animals we’d chose to be and why. All of us, that is, with the possible exception of me. I secretly enjoy ice-breakers. Ok, I lied. I openly enjoy them. And I would be a dolphin, in case you were wondering. You probably weren’t.
The bookstore crammed with parents and students buying everything they realized they’d forgotten or needed upon arrival to campus.
Most of orientation has been made up of seminars and speakers going over the logistics of college life. We had some really interesting diversity talks and a few frightening rape discussions. Use the buddy system and keep those rape whistles handy, ladies! On Friday night we experienced “Playfair” and met more students than I would have thought physically possible within a two hour period. There was a lot of running around and fun/hazardous dancing. Next came my favorite activity – eighties night! It seemed like the class of 2012 in its entirety showed up at Good Will on the morning of our orientation mixer. The place was packed with girls and guys clamoring to purchase cheap costumes for our eighties themed dance. It seemed like a lot of people just tried to put together the most hideous fabric combinations available. The OA’s crammed us all into the Pier and turned on the music. Cameras flashed as new friends tried to capture the perfect Facebook profile picture and, as the night wore on, the giant windows that faces the lake slowly became clouded by the first-year class’s collective body heat.
Nellie and I sport our 80’s attire
My biggest fear coming to college was getting lost. Good thing Richmond’s campus is so small that all you have to do is walk in one direction for about ten minutes and find yourself either at the main road or by the lake! It’s size makes it easy to get to know and feel a part of quickly. I’m already catching myself referring to my dorm room as home.
