newbies

Today I volunteered with the Move In Welcome Crew at TC. My job was to greet the new residents as they came into Whittier Hall, direct them to the right places, and answer questions. I also got to help keep anxious parents calm, direct traffic, run back and forth between guards delivering messages about illegal parking, and eat free bagels for breakfast. I had so much fun, and I got a huge kick out of seeing the hundreds of dazed faces, and, more so, out of seeing the enormous piles of stuff everyone brought. Remember how big my room is? About 10' by 10'? Well, people came with U-Hauls! The trucks themselves are bigger than some of the rooms! I'm curious about where those students are sleeping tonight...

I've only been here for two months, but I felt so knowledgeable and helpful today! (Patrick was right. I do know more than I realized.) Most of the questions I answered were things like:

Where do I get my ID card?

Where's the bathroom?

What's the best way to get to the eighth floor?

I just got here; what do I do first?

The harder questions (i.e. my room doesn't have a phone, my housing contract was never sent to me), I answered with "I really don't know. I'm just supposed to smile and point to the ID card place." But I tried to help as much as I could. And now all those hundreds of new students recognize me as that nice person they met first when they got here. Cool beans!

I also took a group of about thirty people up to Target this afternoon and answered questions and chatted all the way there. I'm really excited to see how many people are going to be living in the dorms; several of the girls I took to Target moved onto my floor today. This is good. I was tired of never seeing anyone around! (The bad part is there is a lot more noise.)

Another fun thing was that several people I met at the Admitted Students Weekend back in May came in today. Many of them recognized me and were surprised to see me helping out already. Tomorrow we have orientation, which I'm both attending and helping out with. More fun coming soon!

I'm still supposed to be writing that paper. It's due tomorrow, and I have about two more pages to go. I didn't really start it until about 9:15 tonight. Oh well... Back to it!