Dorm Life! MUN: Come for Drugs, Sex, and Alcohol!

Yep, so it’s like the ninth day here—things are good, I’m on top of my class work, and for the first time in my life, I’m actually doing my homework before the day its due! If this is how college changes people, I like it . Productivity forever!

But anywayz, onto the second chapter of this story.

Dorm life actually isn’t that bad. After living in Northwestern’s new dorms for two days, UIUC’s Halls seemed subpar. But now, after settling in, homeizing it a bit, and meeting our neighbors—it really isn’t that bad. Minus the fact that Anubhav’s fur is extending the length of the carpet, and it’s actually pretty cool. Observe the wonderful juxtaposition of roomstuffs.

Tuesday was Quad Day, where the school’s 1000+ organizations introduce themselves, and attempt to recruit the many clueless freshmen with piqued interest in the activities. And I realized why they gave us the nice bright orange shirts—they pretty much say “HEY!! LOOK AT ME! I’M A FRESHMAN!!!”—even from a quarter mile away—not something you’d want to do in high school, but in college, most people love freshmen.

I sadly didn’t get to take any pictures of this once a year occasion, but omg, it was yet another amazing sight. The sea of people resembled the scene from the Taste of Chicago last month—and there were so many organizations for all sorts of interests. Admittedly, their manifest functions were not always purposeful, but all of them provided great venues to meet new people. I think I signed up for at least… twenty of them—and a LOT of them were really cool, such as, the Swing Dancing Club (self-explanatory), Kul Sool Won (a Korean composite martial art), Intervarsity (Christian Fellowship), Floatin’ Illini (zero gravity in a plane!!), etc… There were others that I found kind of… misguided. The Wushu Club’s campaigning consisted of three fools standing around with Kung Fu weapons and fliers that wrote out “Come learn moves like those you see in Jet Li and Jackie Chan movies!” Ooh! Be cool! Learn cool stuff! Mleh. What an insult. But perhaps they’re just being smart and know what it takes to get peoples’ interest. Sure, I’ll be visiting them too.

I liked the many many Christian fellowship groups on campus. A bit overwhelming though; Intervarsity, Campus Crusade, Illinilife, TCBC, TCCF, Jesuslove, etc, etc, etc etc………—all of them were very open, had friendly people, and presented themselves well. I was a little confused about all of them, so I asked a bunch about what distinguishes them from each other. They gave a very respectable response; that it was mostly just the character of each group—each of them encouraged me to try going to a bunch and see which one I like the most. I liked that! Each one of them… except the < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” /> Covenant Fellowship Church . They were more… “nono, don’t go to the other ones, come to our church!” Normally, I might see them as being more serious, but in the midst of all the other groups, seeing these guys be so much more closed off was less than welcoming. (more on this later).

I was a bit disappointed by the political organizations on campus. The Illinois Student Senate seemed a complete joke—more so that Student Government back at North. And the Model UN here was just hilarious. I saw the UN flag and thought I’d check it out—and seeing “Model United Nations” I thought, Cool, they have MUN here. I see Krishna ’s name on the sign up sheet, so I signed up too, and then the big Indian dude at the table introduces himself and asks if I did MUN in high school. I said I did for two years (see the 2/17/2004 entry for that ), and then he literally shouts “Yeah?! Dude, this is just like MUN in high school, except with booze, sex, and drugs man—every year the school pays us to go to Washington DC and we party it up, get laid—dude, you’re gonna love it!” All right MUNUC buddies… time to get laid—lol~ I suppose not everyone is up to Sabahat’s level of seriousness when it comes to model international politics (though I would love to see her reaction to the Indian dude).

The science organizations seemed pretty cool—there was a Physics Club that handed out fliers that had been dipped in dry ice and gave out “the coolest fliers of UIUC.” Floatin’ Illini was a group that got NASA funding to conduct experiments in near zero gravity environments of a plane in a controlled fall—every year four students get to go on. I hear from them that it’s a lot of fun; the closest to experiencing space. I signed up for the Illini Buzzer Team (aka Scholastic Bowl)—gotta keep it goin’, and so many others that I can’t quite remember. Overall, it was a fun day, and I finally got the international issues out of the way…

Then… classes started on Wednesday…

[btw, i decided this kinda xanga writing is really REALLY boring (even for me to write) so im stopping this series right HERE–time for soem LIVE NEWS!!!]

A New Home! A New Family! (or not?)

“Courage is taking that first step, or a different path. It is the decision to place your dreams above your fears.” -anonymous

–so will I jump or not?

So I ask myself after reading the calendar/poster beside my desk. Here I am again at my nearly 1 year old Xanga, even in college! HA! That feat alone proves the point I made in my long delayed report for my indy.

And yep, I’m here now, in college, for the fourth day. And yes, it is a different world. I won’t even try to say it all—it is just such a HUGE change from home. It’s an experience to be had, not heard. Everyone seemed overwhelmed to a degree—some by the independence of living without parents, others by the bathroom doors that constantly remind us that we’re now women and men. And of course, there are those that have never seen Asians before and find us bunch rather hilarious. And then there are those that are from other nations. For me, the independence isn’t anything spectacular. I enjoyed a significant amount of independence back at home, so this isn’t too new—I don’t even think I’ll get homesick… even though I’ve already started to miss some people back home.

One big difference from high school is that the ethnic groups are far more pronounced. I remember when ISA started at North, and there were a few complaints that it seemed less inclusive (being a club geared towards a single race). Though all are welcome, the effect does sort people out into their own pre-personality groups. Along those lines, there’s a surprising amount of Koreans and Indians here. Not that I’m complaining.

I will complain about the HUGE number of Naperville people here. Right now, it seems almost as if the social groups of Naperville have been transposed onto a much larger campus; the cliques of high school are still around, and unlike those that are more scarce, and thus forced to make friends—the Naperville crowd seems to have brought along some exclusive nature. Sometimes I wonder how it would feel to be the only one (or two) from some unheard of school… and they see our North/Central crowd of kids. Initially, I had thought it would be awesome—people are naturally gravitated towards social groups… yet, now that I see it, it really just hampers individual growth. During “ Late Night,” UIUC’s version of Senior Celebration, I remember walking alone to the Union building, and suddenly finding a group of 40 or so Naperville people standing around. Some of these people were obnoxious as they are, and back at home, I had hoped that once they got into college out of their close knit groups of perpetuating arrogance, they would have to bring themselves back to the social table, and try to be good people again.

Naturally… at UIUC the population pool is large enough so that the old groups can reconstruct—but for some areas, it seems that entire cliques have enrolled together. And again, I’m not complaining. I’m glad to have a piece of my core group here with me. Yet… even now, I’m wondering if I should have just done a random roommate. The “Naperville-core” crowd will grow—by slowly attracting floaters in… but I had always dreamed (hoped/feared) of college being a new beginning—not just a new chapter. I envisioned finding new people—fresh, lol—the brand-new ready and wanting to make friends kind. The old friends? With goodbye seeming inevitable, I’d accepted essentially saying, “Thank you so much, I love you so much and I owe you so much, and I take a piece of you to the new world that I am to conquer”…and now, that incredibly meaningful sentence has lost itself among old friends. Sometimes I think it’s our group nature that precludes the truly independent good people from making themselves known to us… me. So far, the best new people I’ve met, I’ve met on my own—not while with my old group. And no, I don’t think that it’s selfish that I want to make my own friends. Wasn’t that what our “fellowship” had promised to do? Go far out and conquer new worlds, bringing back new things—yet what we’ve done so far was sit around, and let people come to “us”. Mleh. Count my blessings? Yes, I’ll do that. Perhaps next year, I’ll be the floater finding myself gravitated towards the people (after transfer). Hopefully there’ll be enough people, willing to talk to a new face. Adventure… that’s what’s missing in my new life.

Sitting through Freshman Convocation reminded me of North—in essence it seemed much the same, except much larger in scale. Overwhelming, the number of people just in our class. Apparently it’s the only time, between then and graduation that the entire class would be in one place. Funny how every time something like that is said, I keep thinking… perfect place for a terrorist attack. Always thinking in the worst-case… that’s so me. Still, that didn’t detact from the “awe” of being there–observe:

Assembly Hall–our new auditorium

People heading off to the “Picnic”

After this, the previous “awe-inspiring sea of orange and blue (look below)” aka our graduation seems almost… homely. After being here, thinking of Naperville North makes me think of home… the close knit nature of it all–haha, a HUGE difference from when I first got into high school. Now the fields of North, the halls, all seem so small, and closer to the heart.

After convocation, there was another “carnival” type activity, where I got a bunch of free stuff… though it’s not really free considering we’re paying $18,000 a year to be here. Still, the feeling of getting stuff never grows old. And look! I caught some fish too!

It was a lot of fun, and here I actually met some cool people. Whose names I always forget right before I see them again. I hate the feeling when the other guy/girl knows your name, and keeps talking to you, but you forgot theirs… soooo…. eeck… horrible!

And then there’s the social scene. Describing it… I’ll be very frank—a large , and I mean very large number of people drink—in quantity. Personally don’t approve, but I’ve long thought that drink in great moderation, with the right crowd, and right occasions is O.K. We visited an apartment party (oh, I just noticed I’ve been saying “we” a lot… tis true—we, as Napervillians travel together) on Saturday—essentially a get drunk and go crazy party… except most people were rather boring. We walked out of our dorm in quiet (there were only a few hundred freshmen on campus)… it seemed nice, cool summer night air blowing around… then suddenly around 6 ^th street, things changed. It started with a few people holding drinks going by… then as we went further into what might have been fratville, the quality of the roads changed, the grass seemed a little paler, and it got much much louder. So this was where everyone was. Guided by an older friend (my dear roommate’s bro) he took us to the party. I went with the idea of getting a taste of how these kids had their fun (you’ve got to be stupid, blind, or ignorant to think you can ignore the various aspects of college life). They were there for the manifest purpose of getting smashed. Seriously, I don’t get how people actually go to these parties to “meet” people. I took a sip of what was vodka spiked Hawaiian Punch and some odd lite beer. The punch was nasty, and the beer tasted like… crap. We left after about 5 minutes. Not for us… and definitely not for me. Being there only solidified my convictions to enjoy a relative-drink free college life. But this is where the old group of friends helps—I could see how someone, alone from out of state, might want to stay some more, and enjoy the “social” atmosphere—far more affected by peer pressure. Double-edged sword.

On Monday we visited an Asian-interest party. They went from dorm to dorm, giving out fliers. JLi was naïve enough to think that “nah—there won’t be any drinks”. Yeah. Right. The whole party existed for the sole purpose of getting drunk. It was better than the other frat party (ironic how after deciding not to get drunk at these parties just days before, we go to another one)—the people were… nicer, more open, but smoking and drinking as well. Mleh. The drinks actually cost money ($2) and came in the form of spiced rum (lol—after watching Pirates, and had a strong urge to try rum) keg beer, and “Jungle Juice”. Clearly they were trying to recruit people into their frat. Honestly, the jungle juice (spiked-punch) actually tasted okay… which bothered me. We left there too, in a slightly intoxicated state. Scary how easy it is in college… While we were leaving, the main dude there called out to us “Where are you goin? The party is here!!” We laughed and said it was cool—making room for others (it was really crowded). ‘The farther we were the better.’

(Back to the present… classes start tomorrow!!!! OMGOMGOMG… WAIT… noooo–it’s TODAY!!!!!–)

[END OF SECTION]

[NEXT SECTION–DORM LIFE– living with a hairy beast!]

Today’s meaning and tonight’s significance couldn’t be more straightforward The night before already feels like a lifetime ago. I have so much to be thankful for. (tired beyond belief)

 Post-midnight tonight will be carved forever in my memory—I guess I know how Jason felt when he moved on a full week ago—but today was huge—and once again the gathering was amazing. Not quite a bittersweet celebration—that was how summer started with our graduation. I remember us gathered at Taco Bell in our gowns, eating burritos while the Latino dudes laughed at us. With that night began this eternally long era of summer. Like senior year, it felt as if it would go on forever.

And now the end is here—and it’s finally hit me. The “next step” that countless times we’ve toasted, cheered, and dedicated our nights to, is right here—starting with this morning. Just like Prom offered closure to high school, this night was to close the book on what was by far, the best eras of my life. And I couldn’t think of a better place to do it than where this summer started—at our little Taco Bell on Ogden . The night was more somber and harder than graduation, but just as meaningful. To gather it all in, I felt the urge to step back for a bit, and for a while, I sat observing our tables at T-Bell. And it was truly a sight to hold in memory—and I will forever remember. Then, I felt the urge to jump in—so I did.

Haha, I remember Mr. Ried (my old math teacher) saying how last impressions are the lasting impressions; the way tonight went… I think it could have gone on forever—and for a few brief moments, while we were all circled outside Taco Bell, the meaning of fellowship was revealed. And that meaning will go on with all of us to our God-designated places anywhere. I’ve never felt such a strong bond of familiarity among friends of an era.

And perhaps these bonds go beyond eras. My dad said that the friends you make in high school are the ones you’ll keep for the rest of your life. That truth brings me a lot of comfort.

Yawn… lol, I’d better start packing. Starting with this computer. UIUC, here we come!