College Move-in

This weekend I dropped my oldest off at College. Well, I guess it would be more like lug, lifted and hauled my son off to college.

Residence Hall check-in at the University of North Dakota began at 9 AM on Friday morning. A friend whose son had been a freshman last year told me that people start lining up at 7 AM to get their keys on move-in day. OK, I didn't need to be one of THOSE moms. We didn't show up until 8:10, snagging a great parking place, right in front of the building. Feeling rather virtuous for getting there early, we sauntered up to the front of the building where a few students in official yellow "HOT" (Hall Orientation Team) T-shirts were setting up a sign for the hall. Maybe the people were lining up somewhere else? I asked where the line was and the response was, "people don't usually start lining up until 8:30 or so." They offered to let us sit in the lobby of the hall to wait until 9.

I'm glad we did come early as my son, Sean, was the first to check-in and meet with his Floor Resident Assistant (RA). I was surprised that this orientation meeting took a little more than half an hour--it was going to be a long day for the RA!

We checked the room and decided to pick up the loft for the bed, but before leaving the room, Sean's roommate's family came up with some of the roommate's (Andy) belongings. The family was also sending off their oldest child to college.The Bed Loft. We went to the area for picking up the bed loft parts, receiving end pieces, braces, side rail and miscellaneous nuts, bolts, washers, etc. Oh, yes, we did get instructions--a few indecipherable lines of explanation which assumed the assembler had put the loft together before. I have an engineering degree and I didn't understand it. Fortunately, members of the HOT team were happy to help. Andy's 16 year-old brother, John, was able to observe the procedure so he could help his family with Andy's loft. The hardest part was kicking the bed springs out of the the bed so that we could use them in the loft. Note to self: next year wear hard-soled shoes!

With Andy's family of 5 and Sean and me, the room was a bit crowded for us all to manuver around, so after Sean and I lugged 9 bins up 2 flights of stairs, we decided to go to lunch to allow Andy's family the space to do things. I decided it was worthwhile, afterall, to get there early just to get a close parking space.I took Sean to a local "dive" with good food: The Red Pepper on University Avenue, but not near the university. Sean enjoyed the "grinder" immensely.

After lunch we returned to the room to unpack the bins and Andy and his family was gone, but it looked like they had organized most of his items.Sean and I worked on organizing his half of the room--his first task was to make the bed. I thought making a bunk bed was tough, well I think a loft may be even more difficult, being up even higher. I wonder if Sean will remake the bed at all in the next semester!

I won't go on about all the rest of the details for the weekend, aside from saying that I really set the bar high for my son--I actually told him, I'd be happy if he just didn't flunk out of school and didn't do anything immoral or illegal! Wasn't that motivational!This was "Welcome Weekend" at the University of North Dakota. Ironic, isn't it? "Welcome Weekend" was more of a "Goodbye Weekend" for the parents