Happy Monday! Today is the first day of classes for me, so I’ll be sure to update you on what I’m up to. First, I want to talk about how nice the past week has been. Sure, it’s been pretty busy and I haven’t had all that much sleep, but I really enjoyed the opportunity to settle in to my room and hang out with both the upperclassmen who were here for O-Week and the new students. Last year, I was not a fan of O-Week. As a first year, O-Week can be pretty disorienting. You’re in a new place with a bunch of new people and you know that soon you will be starting school and having to actually do work. But during O-Week itself, you’re kind of just floating (and you also have to determine your schedule for the next ten weeks). It’s a little like a summer camp that you know is going to become significantly more intense very soon. Most of the first years seem to agree with this assessment, and they’re all pretty ready to start classes.
Anyway, let’s talk about the last few days of “summer”!
On Friday morning, my roommate and I decided that we should go to Target on the free shuttle the school was providing. The free ride was a good idea… but with the amount of large-ish stuff we bought, the walk across campus after we got back was a little awkward. Still, we picked up a floor lamp, a microwave, a step-stool (we need some help accessing some of our kitchen storage), and a full-length mirror. No room for small/impulse buys on that trip!
We updated our living are a little. My roommate, Cori, strung up some fairy lights and got some flowers for the table, and we added the floor lamp for a little extra light.
{Can you spot the cardboard? 😉 }
And our microwave? Well, we got it out of the box and noticed it’s a little lopsided. By “a little” I mean that you could hardly open the door because it scrapes along the counter. If returning it wasn’t such a hassle, we might have done that. Instead, we used a piece of the box it came in to prop up the slightly damaged appliance. It felt like an extraordinarily college-y thing to do.
One of the other girls I’m sharing the apartment with, Danielle, moved in Friday afternoon, so now we’re 75% full. Aradhana comes today!
The rest of my Friday was spent buying books, playing games, and taking some first years to and from a party thrown by a guy who used to live in our house.
Saturday was long because I woke up way too early after going to bed way too late. I had gone grocery shopping by noon and didn’t have real plans until the evening, so I spent the day chatting with friends, catching up with upperclassmen who were moving in, and half-napping.
The Museum of Science and Industry typically has a “college night” to end O-Week, complete with hors d’oeuvres and desserts. The museum is closed to people not affiliated with the school, and we are pretty much free to wander around.
The first years liked the idea of dressing up for MSI night, even though it isn’t really a fancy affair.
{Excuse the picture quality. This was actually taken after I got back and I was 1 minute from jeans and a T-shirt.}
Before MSI night, we led the first years to dinner at various restaurants around Hyde Park since the dining halls are closed on Saturday nights.
I had shrimp and crab in lobster sauce at Snail and it was delicious. The stale fortune cookie afterward was less so. That’s okay, though, because then we walked to the MSI, where I ate a fried mac and cheese ball, plus several brownies and Rice Krispies treats for dessert. I only stayed long enough to inhale some sweets and then walked to a shuttle back to campus since it wasn’t all that different from last year.
And I once again stayed up too late being somewhat social. Who am I?
Sunday was endlessly relaxing. I contemplated going out to a distant Chicago neighborhood, but opted instead to hang out at the Institute of Politics eating bagels and donut holes and watching political analysis shows, write, talk to friends, get organized, and take a few long walks in the pretty weather.
{Somehow, I don’t think the week will be quite as empty as it looks there.}
I ended the night with snacks and friends and the supermoon and the first full house meeting of the year. It was good.
Summer stopped. It was a great one, but now it’s time for school and a schedule. And that can be pretty great, too.
Would you have returned the microwave?
Does summer feel over for you?
How was your weekend?
Haha I probably would’ve returned the microwave…it sounds like such a hassle, though. My mini-fridge was dented when I got it last year and I had to return 2 of them to the store before I finally got a non-dented one! I knew I’d be using it for 4 years, though, so it seemed worth it 🙂
And it sounds like a fun weekend…I agree that everything’s so much less overwhelming as a non-first year 🙂
In real life, the microwave would’ve gone back. In college life that requires going back downtown midweek and not having a microwave… I kept it 🙂 Definitely made sense to return that mini-fridge! You need that to last!
So true! There are some perks to this whole “growing up” thing 😉
I would have returned the microwave… It sounds like you are having a lot of fun and meeting a lot of new people which is always fun. I do feel like summer is gone, I am looking forward to the holidays.
bakingrunner.blogspot.com
I’m looking forward to the changing season, too!
Eh, sometimes “DIYing” is just easier 😉
Good luck on your first day!!!
Very true. It might not be the most durable solution, but it works for my purposes 🙂
Thanks! It was a pretty good one!
The MSI night sounds like so much fun! And I probably would have returned it but if it was cheap enough it probably doesn’t really matter ha
It’s sooo nice that MSI does that for us! And yeah, I expect the microwave will serve us for the year and if it doesn’t last after that, we paid like $8 each, so we’ll live.
Summer is definitely over here! Although so far this fall has been more sunny than it usually is, which I am definitely not complaining about! I just realized yesterday that our trees are starting to turn. Fall makes me miss old times so badly!
I hope the leaves start changing more soon! I love the way this campus looks in fall (and, okay, all the time). I adore the bright reds and oranges against a blue sky, though. Perfection!
HAPPY FIRST DAY! Enjoy the syllabus week. 😉 I’m in midterms right now, so it’s crazy you’re just starting!
Thanks so much! Good luck with all your midterms!
I’m not sure about the microwave. In your situation, I’m pretty sure I would’ve kept it and jimmy-rigged something like you did…our family does stuff like that all the time. But if my time and my transportation were my own, I’d be inclined to take it back and get what I’d really paid for.
We had a pretty awesome weekend, chilling with the fam, watching a movie and experimenting around trying to learn to use a MacBook. 🙂 I can’t decide about summer…in the mornings/at night, it’s so freezing cold, you can totally believe it’s autumn. During the day, though, we’ve been having beautiful weather lately: clear, blue skies and warm sun. You wake up in the morning and all you can think about is hot chocolate and apple cider, but come afternoon, it’s so lovely, you just want to eat chicken salad for lunch or sip a smoothie outside in the sun. I’ll take it, because I LOVE the sun. It is kind of hard being the in-between season though, because my mind expects it to be fall, what with all the fall-inspired recipes taking the blog world by storm (yaaaass…bring it on!), so I’m like, “What do you mean I can’t get spaghetti squash, pomegranates or cranberries??? It’s f.a.l.l.!” Lol, I just need to be patient. 😛
My thoughts exactly on the microwave!
That combination of fall and summer is wonderful and frustrating all at the same time. I think we’re juuust starting to exit that stage and head straight into fall. This is the first time in a while I haven’t seen 70° days in the forecast! I love jeans weather 🙂
Your O-Week sounds very much like our Freshers weeks in the UK. I remember being so completely blown away (and exhausted) by it all in my first year that it was almost a relief to get some structure back with classes (although I regretted this the moment the content became indecipherable).
Loving the fairy lights! xx
Hahaha classes are definitely a bit of a shock after all the orientation stuff, but you get into the swing of things pretty quickly.
Thanks, Charlie! They are pretty cute, aren’t they? 😉