Good Ol' UVA

Well, sure enough, I did have fun on July 6th because I was at orientation. Coincidence? Meant to be? Contrived? Take your pick.

I think orientation is meant to ease your worries because you get so many of your questions answered and you get to meet a few people before starting school etc. But for me, the whole ordeal just made the pre-college nerves worse.

I hated meeting so many Virginians. I tried to screen whom I met over the past few days by discreetly checking out people's name tags first to see where they were from before approaching them to say hi. Much to my dismay, trying to find an out-of-state student was a combination of trying to pick out the fine bones in a fish fillet combined with trying to pick perfect apples from a pile of last week's imports: tedious and nearly impossible. And for some reason, I was always surrounded by nursing students, whom I would hardly ever see again once school started because their classes are mostly in their own area of the campus. I'll just attribute the latter to luck (or rather lack thereof).

The only other aspect of UVA that I'm uncomfortable with is overwhelming whiteness and preppiness of the whole place. It makes me not want to get a Vera Bradley all-in-one wristlet, as useful and convenient as they are. I simply don't want to be just like everyone else, but at the same time, I can't help but wish that I would effortlessly be accepted by my peers. But, in order for that to happen, would I have to get one of those horribly floral wristlets along with a pair of Rainbows and some J. Crew cardigans. Yeah, I'm already spending thousands of dollars on tuition, definitely not gonna waste more money on stuff that everyone else has.

So hopefully, the school year will be nothing like orientation. I'm not sure whether I should just try to meet as many people as I can instead of picking out out-of-state students, non-preppy people, pre-comm etc. Maybe the problem isn't everyone else; it's me. I probably just need to get over myself & get over my Maryland-ness.