October 2004

Gillian Woodburn • The Ordeal Begins

Coming back to school is always a big ordeal. It was slightly less so this time because I brought part of my stuff back the weekend before school started. Thursday night, we loaded a loveseat, my bed, and as much stuff as we could possibly fit into the back of my grandma’s truck (which we borrowed specifically so we could take our old green couch to Iowa City, and then it ended up being three inches too long to fit into the apartment).

It’s amazing how many things you need for an apartment that you don’t have to think about when living in the dorms: toilet paper, dish detergent, a broom, light bulbs, ice cube trays, coasters, and a bath mat. (We still don’t have a bath mat.) My family spent a lot of time in Wal-Mart that weekend trying to stock up. I bought a desk and got the furniture in my room set up, but I didn’t have time to get much organized before we headed back to South Dakota.

I’m not really sure how I spent my last week at home, although it went by really fast. I even postponed my coming back until 8:00 Sunday morning, which put me in Iowa City a little before 5:00 pm, about 18 hours before the start of my first class. I had started loading up my car a few days in advance so it wouldn’t take so long.

I tried to make sure I had everything, and I even made a trip through the house looking for things I’d forgotten. But, somewhere in Minnesota, when I started thinking about how I’d arrange my desk, I thought about my computer...and my printer—which was still sitting downstairs in the music room at home. That’s not quite as bad as forgetting to return my dorm keys last spring, but it’s still a classic Gillian move.

Surprisingly, I managed to get everything put away in the apartment within a few days. But, in the first week of classes, I realized that nobody was kidding when they said this is the toughest year yet. My classes are already setting in with a vengeance, and it’s going to take me a while to get back into school mode.

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