A New Beginning

Monday 8/15/11

My packing was over with and I was ready to start my journey to Florida Tech. Too bad my journey started around 5 in the morning! I had a 7 am flight; so of course we had to be there for around six/six thirty; which meant leaving the house at a time of day that I call “too early for any living being to be awake at.”  The flight was… pretty boring until we were about a half an hour outside of Atlanta when my father had to take care of a man who had passed out on the plane! (Thank goodness he fell right in front of a paramedic). After a two-hour lay-over in Georgia; I began my flight to Melbourne, itching to put my feet in the sand and lay by the beach. The window outside of my seat showed perfect blue skies and sunshine as we flew into Melbourne… and the minute the plane landed? Rain—and lots of it! What’s the difference between Massachusetts rain and Florida rain? WARMTH! Rain in Massachusetts is much colder than rain in Florida. Florida rain is what I call play rain, which means you can go puddle jumping without catching pneumonia. So before I knew it, we’re at the beach-side hotel, the Radisson, and I’m itching to move into my dorm and see my roommates for the first time. Too bad that couldn’t happen until tomorrow.

Tuesday 8/16/11

MOVE IN DAY! Today was move in day! I got to unload everything into my room, meet my roommates, explore campus, and participate in activities. It was really a good time. The parents didn’t stay around for too long but there were talks during the evening and lots of roommate bonding happening the first day. It was nice to just relax, go to some math review sessions before placement exams the next day, eat dinner and do some shopping to make the dorm look like home. The key point of the evening? COLOR WARS! (GO ORANGE!!!) Color wars were pretty intense. It was great to see everyone so excited about their teams and get so competitive (in a good way). People painted their faces and had lots of energy, which just made everything that much better.

Wednesday 8/17/11

The day that almost everyone dreaded… placement exams. They actually weren’t too bad. There was plenty of time to finish the exam and the questions were really fair. If you don’t know the stuff; review some of your trig and attend the review session before the exam, they really help a lot. Wednesday had a lot of optional sessions to go to that didn’t apply to me so I decided to explore the Space Coast with my parents before they left. We went to the space museum, which was incredible. It was a gorgeous drive up there to look at the scenery and it had a Star Trek exhibit, which was really interesting as well. Then in the evening there was time to spend with your orientation group and the Dale K comedian hypnotist.

Thursday 8/18/11

Thursday was an academic meeting day. After you met with your adviser you were pretty much good to do whatever you wanted for the rest of the day. There were plenty of sessions to attend such as Greek life, recreation and fitness, and the organizations fair. The organizations fair was really cool because you could sign up for a bunch of different things to do on campus.

Friday 8/19/11

This was another academic meeting day. You pretty much walked into your building, got your schedule, and if you needed to make changes, you could, and if you didn’t then you were free for the day. This meant—BEACH DAY! My friend Connor and I ended up taking a trip down to the beach to spend the day lounging in the sun and playing in the waves. After about two hours of swimming we were pretty beat and ended up going back to campus for lunch and grabbing some books for the bookstore to get ready for classes on Monday. After that, there were color war events, meet the Greeks and another comedy special. (Can I just point out that Orange was great!)

Saturday and Sunday!

The last few days of orientation for me were spent wandering around campus and bonding with my roommates and decorating our dorm. We got a new TV and I learned how to play Wii for the first time. I beat Shelby in Mario Kart three times, oh yeah! She did however beat me when it came to tennis; so I really shouldn’t be saying anything. All in all, orientation was wicked fun and I made a lot of good friends. I can’t wait for the rest of this year!