One Year Down

Published April 29, 2008

By Lea McLellan

These past few weeks I’ve been observing the admitted students walking around campus with their dorky lanyards and eager parents. They’re checking out the gym facilities, peeking through the windows of my English class, and buying chicken fingers at Brennan’s. I saw one girl snap at her “ohmigod so annoying” mom outside the Davis Center. I’m not sure what the mom did to deserve her daughter’s disdain and evil glare, but I assume it had something to do with being “so annoying.” Ah, so young!

Watching these potential “first years” has been simultaneously amusing and surreal. I can’t help but wonder, did I look that lame? Did I wear the lanyard and carry the green bag of UVM pamphlets? I’d like to think that I was a whole lot cooler, but I wasn’t. I wore the nametag with my intended major. I dragged my mom and little brothers around campus. I marveled at the trendy undergrads with their hip sunglasses walking to class and playing Frisbee on the green.

After admitted students day was orientation—I vaguely remember feeling awkward and getting a henna tattoo and then I went home to get psyched for “real college.” After too many trips to Linens N’ Things, I packed all my crucial possessions (kundalini yoga DVD, monkey piñata, Q-tips) into my mom’s car and unpacked them into my new room. Now I’m studying for my finals.

What happened in between is a blur. At what point did I stop being an awe-struck geek with a nametag and become a Frisbee playing, hip sunglass-wearing undergrad? I’m not sure, but lets hope it happened early on.

It seems impossible, but I spent the better part of eighteen years of my life without knowing the wonder and delight of Harris Millis Dining Hall. I’ve only just recently cultivated an unspoken, but deeply rooted understanding with the sandwich lady.

Before college, I had never seen a real, live sloppy-drunk girl running barefoot up Main Street. It’s difficult to fathom that there once was a time when I hadn’t experienced a bus full of college students at 1:00 a.m. singing/screaming Alanis Morisette’s “You Oughta Know.” Hell, I didn’t even have a Facebook before I came to UVM—now it’s physically impossible to write a paper without compulsively checking my homepage. I also had no idea that Macs were way cooler than PCs. Unbelievable, right?

It’s true—I’ve learned a lot in college. For instance, yes, college kids still dress up for Halloween. And Halloween isn’t just one day—it’s a whole week! Who could forget the slutty nurses and miscellaneous “whore-ified” woodland animals walking home early Sunday morning? I know I never will.

On a more serious note, I was making a peanut butter and banana sandwich today. I was shocked to find myself scraping at the bottom of my jumbo, BJ’s Wholesale Club-sized jar of peanut butter. This means I’ve been here long enough to eat three pounds of peanut butter. Three pounds.

It’s too weird—last scoop of peanut butter, last class with my favorite professor, last Water Tower article, last weekend going out with my friends. Sure, I’ll be back in August, but it won’t be quite the same. This is probably a good thing and I have no doubt that each semester can only get better, but I’ll miss my freshman year.

If I thought it would help, I would love to approach one of these green UVM bag toting potential freshies. I’d tell them that their mom asking the tour guide if there’s “anything neat for the kids to do on the weekends” and the fact that their dad is carrying a clipboard and taking notes on the environmental friendliness of the Davis Center really isn’t that mortifying or important.

Against all odds, they will eventually get over the fear of being run down by lunatic long boarders, get used to eating dining hall food, and sharing a bathroom with strangers… kind of. Of course, I can’t tell them any of these things. While freshman year may be a blur, it’s your own personal blur and everyone figures it out for themselves.

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