Out of the Blue...!

And, while we were all pretty sure that we would hear nothing about dorm rooms and room-mates until mid-July, here we are today, June 29, all receiving an e-mail out of the blue:  "Part of the excitement of the first-year in college is learning where you will live and who your roommate will be; we are pleased to share this information with you..."

Actually, I didn't check my inbox until I suddenly saw everyone bombarding Facebook with what residence hall/floor they ended up with. Within seconds, everyone had gotten excited discussing the news about their roommates and hall-mates... Wait, what? I rushed into my Davidson inbox to see that I had received that e-mail as well. I opened it quickly and literally could not decide where to lay my eyes on for a start. When I was receiving and reading my college admission-decision letters three months ago, I wasn't nearly as excited as while reading that letter; I think that what makes today's news such a bigger deal than decision letters is probably the thought of finally knowing the "stranger" you're going to share a room with for the next ten months (at least)! 

Okay, I admit that I'm the kind of person who gets VERY easily excited... But from what I can sense from all this Facebook posts-and-comments bomb, everyone else in my class is pretty excited as well. I actually shared a few words with my future roommate and it honestly (and expectedly) turns out that it's going to take a lot more than a few pm's to get to know each other completely. And I'm by no means saying this in a negative manner - there's so much more about me, and about her, which we are both going to learn on the way, and I'm personally eager for that time to come. After all - and I'm going to quote my roommate here - August's just around the corner!

Hopefully not a picture of our dorm next fall!

Cats

When I heard that "WildCats" is like a trademark for Davidson students, I was extremely excited, among others because I like cats. But my excitement was not for long...

Davidson, like most other colleges, prohibits any interaction with pets. Naturally, we're not allowed to bring any animals on campus - except for fish or anything that cannot survive outside water (Ew). But, in addition to that, we won't be allowed to feed any stray cats or dogs while on campus, since the college (rightfully) notes that, "caring for these animals during the semester results in cruel abandonment when students leave for winter and summer break".

Our cat and one of her babies

There is a very reasonable basis for this prohibition, but I'm still going to miss the activity of feeding and caring for stray cats, which were always around my house in the previous years. For example, there is one cat here at home that has adopted us since some months. In May, she and her sister had three baby kittens each, for which we've cared. Cats are one of the most admirable species, for me. It's very interesting to look how quickly kittens grow up from tiny things that can barely crawl to full-grown, clever adults. I could just watch them for hours...

A newborn, just a few days old

But don't be discouraged, animal-lovers! I spoke with my Cats Connect Mentor (actually a sophomore at Davidson) about this huge worry of mine, and she assured me that there are hundreds of people with puppies and dogs and cats around the town, who'll let you pet them!

"I open at the close"

I should probably be sleeping right now. It's already a couple of hours past midnight here in Greece, and this has been quite a tiring day. I haven't yet finished looking through all my clothes and stacking them up according to what I'm going to do with them - it's not only about deciding what to take to Davidson and what to leave home... The thing is, apart from my own upcoming departure to North Carolina, that my family will also be moving to Crete (yeah, the island) permanently, right after my high school graduation. In other words, this is a time of a lot of simultaneous, great changes. It may sound a bit too "poetic", but it really feels like a whole chapter of my life - my school, my old friends, my neighbourhood - is ending, before it is replaced by a new one, beginning this August!

You bet I'm going to miss quite a bit of that old chapter... Most of my friends are staying in Europe - and I'm the only one so far from my school to ever attend Davidson. At least, when it comes to people like my friends and family, we'll have the opportunity to communicate once in a while (thanks to Skype and e-mails, mostly)! It's not only people, though, that I'm going to miss. I keep thinking about my school's music club, in which I've been actively involved for three years and from which I've gained some of my happiest experiences; unfortunately, due to Davidson's annual schedule, I know I won't be able to make it to any of the club's music performances next year, or to any of their performances for the next four years... Yes - even this "insignificant" thing about leaving is also one that bothers and saddens me, when I think about it.

I believe that everyone leaving home for college has at least one thing or experience that they find hard to leave behind - for me, it is that particular club, for somebody else it might be anything. Personally, I gain courage by thinking that the upcoming experiences that lie on the other side of the Atlantic could outweigh everything, or almost everything, that will be missed at home. I'm going to study what interests me and to meet hundreds of people on the same boat as me... I'm pretty confident that, by this Christmas, I will have had such mind-blowing experiences that I won't even bother being sad about missing what happened at home during the months I'll have been away. Well, do I know it's going to be that way? Admittedly, no. But I sincerely feel that it will. Only time will tell...