I write to you now from the beautiful Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. I'm about nine to ten hours from home, where I grew up, where I've lived my whole ilfe, where most of my friends remain. Is it hard? Oh yeah, it's hard. And I've only been here two days! After my parents left on Friday, I spent time setting up my room, meeting with my CWS group (a hilarious bunch — I'm looking forward to that class this year), went to dinner with my roommate and her already-large group of friends (how does she do it? I wonder), and skipped out on some other festivities that evening (a book discussion on the summer reading, a party over at Tussey and Terrace) so that I could finish unpacking and setting up my space, then curl up in bed and cry, talk to a few friends online, cry some more. It was tough. People tell you that you'll be homesick, that you won't be the only one — I wonder if anyone else is as homesick as I am?
Luckily yesterday, my crying was minimal. I got up, got pancakes with my roomie, took this lame freshman survey, and then lounged in my room until lunch time. I mostly just wanted to be alone, cried a little, but then decided that if I'm going to mope and wallow, I might as well be productive — so I got out my novel and proceeded to continue with revisions. My roomie and her friends came back around noon and I left to go eat lunch with them. Our CWS groups met up again, this time about this tree project we're doing — our entire class (as in class of 2012) is planting a tree, whoo. We walked out to the tree orchard they've got going, roamed around while we wondered what it was we were supposed to be doing, then walked out to the Peace Chapel — which is nice, yes, but it was incredibly hot and thus we all became very grimy, sweaty, icky. After that, I went back to my room to change and chill and read before "dinner with the student government" (which I assume meant that they just paid for it — because nobody from student government made themselves known at dinner, haha). I went by myself and made myself be friendly and ask someone else if I could sit with them — and the two people I chose ended up being so supernice and wonderful and they schooled me on Western Pennsylvanian slang and wondered why I don't have a Kentucky accent and I hung out with them and a big group of people that they know the rest of the night. I felt special, knowing that if I put my mind to it I can actually make friends.
Of course, what am I doing now? Sitting up in my room on Sunday morning writing this (though I did take a quick break to go with my roomie to the Help Desk and then to "brunch" which consisted of pasta and pizza — delicious, right?). My roomie and I are taking a shuttle to Wal-Mart later this afternoon so that we can buy a bookshelf and one or two more power strips. Honestly, we have a wonderfully large room, lots of closet space — but shelf-space is incredibly minimal! We each have a shelf in our closet and that's it! So a bookshelf will be wonderful for, you know, books, as well as our TV and DVD which we have yet to set up (though last night we found the cable hook-up! Yay!). But until then, I kind of just want to chill in my (finally cooled-down) room and work on my novel revisions a little more and perhaps read a bit, too. People have told me that it's important to get out, make friends, socialize — but I think my peace of mind requires this alone-time. And peace of mind is something I plan on keeping this year, especially now when I need it most.
Classes start tomorrow. I'm excited.