Arrival Day

Note: I posted yesterday as well, so if you didn't read that one yet, you should read it before this one, if you want to.

Now to tell about check-in (and everything else that happened the first day I was there). We followed the signs to where we were supposed to park, and then I sat in the car a bit combing my hair out and getting to look presentable. Then we went up to the check-in table. Thad couldn’t come with me through any of it – he had to go right to the Family and Friends Pavilion. So I gave him my keys so he could get his book out of the car, since they said this was going to take about two hours. They gave me a notebook-size hand book with lots of information in it and forms I had to fill out. After that it was like a scavenger hunt – we had to keep following the signs from one station to the next, doing all the things that needed to be done, like getting our apartment assigned and getting our picture taken for our housing ID.
I wasn’t expecting to get a choice of housing – it had been implied that we would just be assigned housing when we got there – but the lady at the desk asked me which apartment complex I wanted, Vista Way or Chatham. Remembering the advice given by a friend of my grandmother’s, I chose Chatham. She said she had a three-bedroom available, and was that fine? I said yes, it was. The three and four bedroom apartments are cheaper and there would be a greater chance of me being compatible with at least one of them. They gave us lots of papers, and we had to get fingerprinted – the guy asked what color my hair was, and I didn’t know what to say! It’s reddish blondish goldish brown, but that wasn’t one of the choices. I saw afterward that “Red” included auburn, so perhaps I should have gone with that. The guy said strawberry blonde was an option, so I said yes to that, but it was just included in “Blonde,” and my hair isn’t blonde. I suppose since I’m not planning on doing any thing that would require my fingerprint record to be looked up, it doesn’t really matter. How would you describe my hair color?
By the time everything was done – and I’d run around to get my keys from Thad so I could get my registration and proof of insurance so I could get my car sticker – I just barely had time to catch the bus to make it to the noon housing meeting. It was supposed to be two hours long. With apologies to Thad for him being put through this, I left. The housing meeting was just as dull as I expected. You from Cornerstone – or probably any other people who’ve stayed in dorms – know the drill. Lots of rules and policies. And at the end a spiel from Vista Credit Union (the Disney credit union) about how we should all sign up for it. But I am loyal to my credit union ever since they graciously canceled my overdraft fees that I deserved, and have no intention of joining a different one. But I had to sit through the spiel – and through waiting for the people who wanted to sign up to do so – before I could go rescue poor Thad. By this time it was two o’clock, and neither of us had eating since breakfast, and we were ferociously hungry. So we went to Taco Bell.
We had just time after eating to find my apartment and unload my things. On coming to the apartment complex, I discovered to my dismay that I didn’t have the housing ID I had just gotten. I had had it in my pocket, and now it was gone. Fortunately they let me in because I had the temporary one-day pass on my dashboard, and I went and found my apartment. It is on the third floor of building 19. All the beds were taken but one, which was actually something of a relief because it meant I didn’t have to make a decision. At first I thought no one was there, but there was someone in the room with the one empty bed. She was rather tall, with long red hair.
“Roommate?” she asked cheerily.
“Yes,” I answered. “I’m Joanna.”
“I’m Abby,” she said. And we both said something polite, and I said I liked her ninja turtle sheets. We were both trying to be friendly at the same time, and not be awkward, but of course it didn’t work very well because how can you not be awkward when you’re trying to convey that you want to be as friendly as possible, but you’ve never seen each other before in your lives? She helped a bit as we unloaded, but then she just stayed up in the apartment so we could leave the door unlocked (it locks automatically when it closes). Two people just being able to come in and out is quicker than three people having to fight with unlocking the door every single time, I think. At any rate it’s less frustrating.
Once everything was in, it was time to take Thad to the airport. I followed the signs, and dropped him off at the Midwest gate, and we said goodbye, and I drove away. And then I was really and truly alone, and I searched through the radio stations so as to avoid crying. I found one Christian station (but it’s not a very good one, it doesn’t play much of the best music) and then another one in Spanish! The Christian Spanish station is very nice, and I know just enough Spanish to know from the feel of the song and scattered words the general idea of what the song is about.
The apartment is lovely – large and spacious and airy and the walls are all white instead of that horrid dingy yellowish color of the Cornerstone dorms and apartments. That evening I met my other apartment mates – Dani and Nicole and Kara and Marijka – but I couldn’t keep track of their names just yet. I spent most of the evening unpacking. Some of the others hung out in the kitchen area talking, and I thought I ought to so as not to seem antisocial, but I couldn’t stand leaving my boxes all there disorganized and a disaster and needing unpacking, and anyway I’m no good at small talk.
The other roommates wanted to just all buy groceries and split them, as opposed to everyone having their own groceries and cupboard. I was rather skeptical of this idea – what if they liked things completely different from me, or expensive things I couldn’t afford? But when four of them came back from that evening’s Walmart (the spell check thinks I should spell it “Wal-Mart,” but I think that looks weird, like writing “Jell-O,” or capitalizing Styrofoam or Kleenex or Tupperware) expedition, the resultant groceries might have come home in my mother’s van, when she came back from an shopping trip particularly suited to my tastes. Sliced cheese, and also good block cheese, and sliced turkey, and bagels, and frozen turkey breasts to cook, and cereal, and I don’t remember what all else, but it was all just perfect, and I knew this system would work out fine. So I took a bunch of things out of my cupboard and added them to the pantry as my contribution to our groceries (I also had given them $5 when they left). We also bought a water filter jug because the water here smells and tastes like a dirty dishrag.
This concludes the account of my arrival day.