The Beginning of Something Special

I have decided to write this next installment from a present tense point of view. Hopefully, I will be able to recreate some of my thoughts and emotions from that day. It may turn out to be a total dud, but if you are reading my blogs already you probably know I don’t put a ton of thought into my entries before posting them. Just write what ya feel right?

 Friday August 26, 2011

I hate you. Flashing, making obnoxious noises. I want to rip my alarm clock out of the wall and throw it on the ground. School doesn’t start for three days, yet I have already had to set an alarm to get up for some class called Freshman Seminar. From what my RAs said, Freshman Seminar is used to helped get freshmen acclimated to being at Northwest. Essentially it is a “How to be a Bearcat” class. At the current moment, it falls a close second behind my alarm clock on things I am not a big fan of. If nothing else, it shouldn’t be at 8am the day after one of the most emotionally and physically exhausting days of my life. 

I climb out of my loft and grab my shower caddy. Caddy is a funny word. I slumberly wander into the shower, only to find all eight of them occupied. Great. I am going to wait, the shower will help to wake me up a little bit. After about 5 minutes a shower opens up and get in and out quickly so I can get over to Wells Hall for the first college class of my life. 

Another get to know you game. I do like that all the kids in my Freshman Seminar class are also majoring in journalism. I think to myself, maybe I can find some solid friends in this class since we will be around each other a lot the next 4 years. As the teacher starts going through the syllabus, I begin to hope that not all college professors are like this guy. He is stressing the importance of our attendance to seminar and running through all the things we will have to do this semester. I have to write a paper about and document my experience at a football game. What is this? Before we leave my teacher and some girl named Megan (she identified herself as our peer mentor) run down all the things we are going to be doing together this weekend. The first is tonight, some seminar called “Can I Kiss You.” They both assure us that it is actually one of the more fun things from the weekend. At this point, I refuse to trust someone that expects us to wake up at 8am tomorrow to watch a tree planted to represent our freshman class. 

Today looks a lot like yesterday. FIFA, chowing down at the Union, and meeting new people. Logan and I try to get a football game going with guys on our floor and it is pretty productive. We start talking about having a flag football team on the floor and are actively trying to recruit our RA Jake to take on the quarterbacking roles. He throws a pretty nice ball. After dinner, I go meet up with my Freshman Seminar for Can I Kiss You. This thing just sounds like a nightmare.

We get into the Ron Houston Performing Arts Center and find a seat. The show starts and it appears that our teacher and peer mentor may have actually told the truth. The speaker is really, really funny and what he is talking about is actually really interesting. His presentation is about the dangers of sexual assault. Both with your personal interactions with the opposite sex and how to stop or be made aware of potential assaults that may be happening around you. 

After Can I Kiss You, I have some options. I can go get ice cream with some guys from my floor or go play volleyball with a campus ministry called the Navigators. I was somewhat familiar with the organization because of a girl named Kaylyn Costello. Her mom and my mom work together and Kaylyn had shown us around a little bit when I visited Northwest earlier that year. She kind of explained what the Navigators was and talked a little bit about what they believed.

Honestly, I am kind of scared to go. I am still trying to sort through what kind of role I want religion to play in my life during college. That being said, I knew that my mom wanted me to at least try them out and whether I told her or not she would find out from Kaylyn. Plus, I really love playing volleyball and have enjoyed all the new people around the last day and a half. As I make the decision that I will go, I realize that I don’t really know where to go. Right on cue, I get a phone call from a number that I don’t have. I recognize the 402 area code representing an Omaha number and decide to pick up. It’s Kaylyn. She explains to me how to get to the volleyball court and I start walking over.

As I get nearer I here pretty loud music and see a lot of people. They all look really excited and happy, my fears and apprehension dissipate pretty quickly. I find Kaylyn and she introduces me to a couple of her friends as we get onto the court. Nikita and Evette, so naturally I assume that everyone in this group has some kind of unique name. It is clear that we aren’t playing super competitively, which is fine with me because everyone seems to be asking me questions and answering and playing is much harder than I thought.

After about 15 minutes or so I see both of my RAs walking up to the court with a group of guys from the floor. Cool. Jake comes over and tells me that they had been trying to find me. I explain to him how I know Kaylyn and how she helped me find the place. He steps across the net. I figure that he is probably pretty good at volleyball. I am right. James lines up in our back line with a guy from our floor that I assume is his brother. They look identical and have been spending a lot of time together the last couple of days. 

We play for a long time and then I go get myself some lemonade and sit down on some rocks and just watch, thinking about what has happened the last couple of days. A lot of my life has seemingly changed and I expect for that to continue for the next couple of days. A guy comes up next to me and sits down. He introduces himself, his name is Kyle. We talk about our homes and families. Kyle is from Council Bluffs. Everyone here seems to be from the Omaha area. He asks me a lot of questions and really just listens to what I have to say. I have had a lot of these conversations the last couple of days, but no one really listened like Kyle did. It was cool. 

As volleyball starts to slow down, Jake rounds all the guys up from my floor and we start the walk back to Dieterich. I am feeling good. I am really glad I decided to go play volleyball, and even more glad to see that Jake and James were there too. I can just kind of sense something special happening, even more special than that tree planting tomorrow morning that I am most certainly going to skip.