So, I decided to tell you guys something extremely cool that may or may not be happening with the incoming freshmen class next year. My freshmen seminar class (The Examined Life) consists of the same people from my orientation group, which made me feel more comfortable attending classes on the first day. I got to know my group really well during orientation, and since the Examined Life is a class that is focuses on writing about yourself (Yes, finally a class where you can use "I" as much as you want to in a paper), we became a lot more closer after sharing our personal stories. Our orientation leaders are actually staying with us throughout our class, too. My two orientation leaders, Rob and Jenna, already have started planning times to come into our class to read off their papers from when they took The Examined Life. Also, they plan to have hangouts outside of class with everyone, as if it's orientation all over again. Last week, we had our first outside of class hangout. Jenna went with the girls back to her room, while the guys had an air hockey tournament in the lounge. In Jenna's room, we filled out a questionnaire regarding our college experience so far. Here were some of the questions and my answers:
1. What is the biggest challenge about having a roommate?
I think it's hard outgrowing the expectation that you and your roommate aren't going to be best friends. It's a good thing for me and my roommate though because we have our own seperate groups of friends, yet I know I can come back to our room and feel completely comfortable to talk with her about anything.
2. How often do you talk to your parents/ other family?
I talk to my parents every day, usually through texting since it's more convenient and also a faster way of communicating. As for my other relatives, I keep in touch with them through e-mails once a week.
3. How often do you feel homesick?
It comes in waves for me, sometime it hits real hard, and sometime it comes in a quick moment where something here might remind me about my friends and family back home. I would say that homesickness hit me almost every day in the first couple of weeks, but I've become more adjusted to the point that I only get homesick 2-3 times during the week.
4. What do you think about the weekends here?
The weekends here are awesome. You can find your niche here and choose to do what makes you feel comfortable, without any judgment from anyone. Chances are you will find people here who like to partake in the same activities you do.
I was a bit worried that I was the only one answering these questions this way, but I was quickly reassured when Jenna read out each of our answers (anonymously) only to find out the other six girls felt the same exact way I did about some of the issues. Jenna allowed us to open up about our feelings, and it was a really awesome bonding experience. I can't wait for more of these outside of class hangouts. I am glad that I'm part of this "test" group. I hope that this test run proves that staying in touch with our orientation leaders and orientation groups is beneficial to our learning here. If this goes well, then you guys should be able to experience this next year!
Be sure to check out my next blog post regarding an assignment that's for The Examined Life. I can't use any technology (television, radio, i-pod, computer, cell phones, etc) for 24 hours. Coming from someone who is constantly multi-tasking between listening to music, being on Facebook, and texting people, this is going to be a really interesting challenge.
Until next time,
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