It's Miss A here, and I'm one happy little woman. Just a couple of days ago, myself, along with the entire freshman class, was invited to spend 3 blissfully agonizing days at Tennessee Wesleyan College's Freshman Orientation activities.
Like many incoming freshmen, I was a little afraid, maybe even mortified at the thought of starting all over again in the bottom of the school hierarchy, as well as being leery of senior hazing. However, my fears were temporarily lifted after I had decided to sit with and chat up a few old friends from my old high school in Madisonville. All of them were doing fine, but all means. One girl had cut her hair and dyed it maroon (ooookay), while another had gotten married over the summer; this guy who was originally a religious zealot at our school became what can only be described as a "man whore", and finally, a seemingly nice girl and her similarly unassuming best friend became the biggest potheads this side of Cheech and Chong.
Once I had briefly caught up with my high school alma-matter, things had grown silent on my side of the table in Sherman Hall's giant cafeteria. While everyone else was babbling incoherently about their summer conquests, I had nothing to vouch for. No tan, no pictures from the beach (I did have pictures from the Tellico Beach, though!), and no asinine rambling about getting drunk and wearing a lampshade like a douchbag. Almost immediately, I began to feel left out, realizing the major flaws in all of the people that I had been seeing for the past 13 years. I couldn't bring myself to talk about the things they talked about in the breakfast hall--I didn't have the stomach nor the low standards to even attempt talking like that. And so, after stuffing my face with a full bowl of cereal, a big helping of scrambled eggs, 2 small links of sausage, 3 pieces of bacon, and a pile of hash browns, I waddled away from that monstrously massive Sherman Hall in search of new people to hang out with. Yet, as my luck would have it, my old friends from Madisonville caught up with me, and decidedly followed me for the longest until we had to make for Townsend Auditorium's latest program, where I nodded off into La-La land.(Which isn't too weird for college kids.) After I woke up(as well as the majority of the kids in the auditorium), we had to go do a community service project for the so-called "Friendly City" of Athens in which we had to clean up a creek, or in my group's case, train tracks. It was hot, overly tiring, and all I wanted was a Coke to drink. Needless to say, our group leaders only allowed us to get a small bottle of water, only on the condition that we cleaned a set amount on the tracks without causing trouble. My group and I, which consisted of a computer science major, a math major, and a soon-to-be librarian was responsible for finding a lot of the most interesting things. We found a beautiful, tri-colored spider,(when the guys saw the thing, they screamed at it and high-tailed it down the tracks. The girls, on the other hand, cooed and baby talked it without recognizing the potential threat that it posed toward them.), 2 needles, a crack pipe(with crack still in it!), a pair of musty old shoes, and a kiddie pool. My sources tell me that another group found an old stoplight, but at this time, I can't confirm it. Once we got finished with our community project, we boarded up on the bus and headed back for TWC, sweating profusily and stinking to high heaven, each of us praying endlessly to be dismissed early from Freshman Week. It was with shear luck that we had to suffer for another 30 minutes in Townsend Auditorium, reeking of several layers of dirt and sweat and yawning tirelessly as the Student Life lady rambled on for what seemed to be forever about the "wonderful job" we did on our community service project and how we should consider our services to be an honor in the name of Tennessee Wesleyan. I had to disagree, however. I love TWC as much as much as the next person, but....I hate the city of Athens with a purple passion for many reasons. One, it seems like none of the Athenians know where Madisonville is, although its a 25 minute drive away. Two, when I suggested to one of my new friends that we should go to the Tellico Beach and have lunch, she gave me the exact same look that a dog would when its cocking its head. What is up with these people, seriously?