a nearly three week update of college life

It has officially been a time since I last blogged. Over a month. In not too much longer, it’ll be two months.

Why did this happen?

C o l l e g e.

• SLM training

I arrived two whole weeks before anyone else for training in Sound, Lighting, and Media. And I honestly feel weird thinking back to the first few days when I hardly knew the people I’m hanging out with constantly. On Monday (the 12th), we started our training, but it was kind of boring and I don’t remember what happened. Now on Tuesday, we did a team-building exercise in Cicero.

We were at a horse riding center, and after doing some exercises with the horses, we talked about leadership and what everyone was bringing to the team. And then we got pizza because we were about to starve and it might’ve been the best thing I’ve ever eaten, even with the flies and the humidity. The best thing that happened that day, though (besides not getting trampled by a horse) (that’s probably the way I’m going to go out, and I can only avoid it for so long), was starting to bond with the team. You could see how people acted when someone had to take the role of leader, how people handled stress, how people expressed ideas, and how well others listened to them. You could see people.

The rest of the week was dedicated to learning (I’m still seeing how much of that stuck.) Tours of the banquet rooms, auditoriums, chapel, and storage rooms. Several client set-up scenarios with loudly playing Mario Kart-like music. Learning how to properly wrap cables (which are cables, not cords). And when that week was over, I started my first shift.

• Donuts

Sometimes you go to bed on time.

And sometimes you go outside your dorm to watch people skate and you end up going over to one of the tech’s houses to get some people to come back to skate with you and you end up watching a movie that’s already been going for twenty minutes and you end up getting roped into going for donuts in Kokomo at 12:00 at night when it’s raining and you can see lightning all around you and you end up getting back to your room at 2:30 AM after singing Bohemian Rhapsody and Africa by Toto as loud as you can in the car.

• Longboarding (!!!)

I got a longboard! Which is like a skateboard, but slightly different shape! I’ve already fallen off it twice!!

But I’m learning. The majority of the SLM team have boards, so I suppose I haven’t escaped peer pressure very well, but I’m enjoying myself. Currently, I’m at the stage where I push off and go a few seconds before trying to awkwardly shimmy myself forward. I need to get over the fear of moving on the board because you have to move and you have to adapt to where you’re going. Which could be, like, a super deep metaphor for college or something.

• Ants

My dorm room is slightly infested with ants. Just in case you were wondering.

• Freshman mating season

Here at IWU, there is an unfortunate tradition that I’ve already begun to witness. Freshmen in college, being the insecure creatures that they are, try to find someone to date as soon as they get to college. Several guys in the SLM team have looked up Wikihow articles during dinner on how to ask girls out. I think it was a joke. I hope it was a joke. I’m not dating until I’m 30.

• Baldwin

As far as college dining halls go, Baldwin isn’t bad. But it’s also not great??

The meat is normally dry (my chicken the other day was raw), the vegetables are either undercooked or mush and the seasoning on them is often shameful, and the carrots—gosh darn the carrots—I never want to eat cooked carrots by themselves again. My mouth is pained thinking about it.

The pudding, however, is quite good. So there’s that.