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First day at college was a long time in the making

Date published: 8/21/2008

BE STILL MY HEART! I'm moving out tomor- row! I'm off to experience dorm life, and I have no idea what to expect. I'm just hoping it's nothing like high school.

You see, I only applied to one college, meaning I put all my eggs in one basket. It was do or die (which I don't suggest for anyone else). I just happened to get out alive.

I used to obsessively check the mailbox waiting for my rejection letter. My Plan B was all worked out--I was going to attend community college in Richmond and live at home with my parents.

After 40 nail-biting days of waiting, I received my acceptance letter to the University of Mary Washington, and I could hardly believe it. Weeks of work and preparation had gone into this moment: the admission essay (which, oddly enough, focused on my life's failures); my many meetings with various deans at UMW; driving to my old high school to get my official transcript; trying to obtain letters of recommendation; but most of all, the wait, the agonizing wait.

I found an interesting way to tell the rest of my family that my long wait was rewarded with success. A lot of people were attending the LibertyTown gala event that my mom was taking part in. So, in an envelope, I enclosed a copy of my acceptance certificate. I told them it was a really bad letter of recommendation from my English teacher. My story was, I wanted them to look over it to see if it was as bad as I thought. When I saw their faces, I felt like I had finally achieved something so good that I would be justified in running around my house dancing. After a night full of fancy snacks and many pats on the back, I began mentally preparing for the actual school part.

Twelve Diet Cokes and a big headache later, my grandma (an alumna of UMW) and I were done choosing my courses. At 7 a.m. on a Monday morning, I went onto Eaglelink, the school's communication hub, and signed up. Class sign-up is on a first-come, first-served basis, and in my early-morning excursion, I got all the classes I wanted. I knew that procrastination would have left me with no choices.

Date published: 8/21/2008