I’ve been living in Iowa City for exactly three weeks now. Honestly, it feels like I’ve been here for three months and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or bad thing. When I left home on August 16th, I didn’t expect my life to change as much as it did in such a short time. That sounds totally overdramatic, but it’s so true!

Good Changes

• Starting a workout routine. Back at home, all I would ever do is hang out with friends and watch Netflix with my sisters. I never had the energy to hit the gym or even get a light workout in. I am not joking when I say I only worked out approximately three time this whole summer. But with the rec center being a five-minute walk from my dorm, it’s hard not to want to go to the gym! A plus about living in Hillcrest is that if I ever don’t feel like making the five-minute walk, I just go down to the gym in the basement! It has a beautiful view of the Pentacrest and river. I now go to the gym around 4 to 5 times a week and love the feeling of it. No freshman 15 for me – hopefully. *knock on wood*
• Becoming such great friends with the girls on my floor. When my roommate and I got our dorm assignment and we saw it was the all-girls 4th floor of Hillcrest we both wanted to cry. We had our hopes set on co-ed Burge. Hillcrest was on the west side of campus, and although four flights of stairs doesn’t sound awful – IT IS. We just had to work with what we got. The first week when everybody is moving in I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend keeping your door open! This is the best way to meet the people on your floor and make your first few friends. Living in an all-girls floor could’ve gone either really good or really bad, and thankfully – it’s been a blessing! I am so close with the girls that live around me. Having people just a few steps away has never been better. I can always run into their rooms if I need to talk, a hug, or even just company.
• Gaining the mindset that homework comes first (…err, most of the time). We all know that high school teachers exaggerate when talking about college. Although not everything they say is true, some of it is! The professors here are not as scary and daunting as previous teachers make it seem. They’re all so down to earth and crack jokes 24/7. On the down side, they do stack on homework like it’s their job – which I guess it is, haha. It’s definitely not a joke when they say that one lecture hour should be equivalent to three hours of homework. I have so much homework that I start as early as I can to have my nights off. Honestly, I have NO idea how I would survive college if I didn’t prioritize my time wisely. Although I’ve had one or two oopsie days where I just want to hang out with friends and be lazy, I have made it such a good habit to do homework between classes and early in the day.

 

Bad Changes

1. Losing old connections. It’s true when they say you don’t talk to everyone you thought you would after high school. People dispurse out into the real world and choose different colleges. . . nobody has time for superficial friendships. I stopped talking to about 80% of the people from back home, and it’s scary to think that that is only going to get higher. I don’t know if people would consider this a “bad” change, but for me it is. I’m scared that I might stop talking to some people who are true friends just because of my lack of time to talk. I’m always so busy with an activity, homework, or even just hanging out with people that are near me that I don’t always want to be on my phone maintaining the conversations from people who aren’t near me.
2. Changing who I am in certain situations. People always say that college is the place to “re-invent” yourself and what not. Although this is true, it feels weird to me. Before moving here I told myself that I was going to try becoming a “new person” (Lol – I know I hate myself too). Now that I’m here, however, if I ever act like someone I know I’m not I just feel dumb inside. I’ve tried staying true to who I am and dropped the idea of changing into a “new person”, but I still catch myself doing things I wouldn’t normally do or say things I wouldn’t normally say.
3. Developing a whack eating schedule. Since college isn’t like high school where there’s a specific lunch period, one must fend for themselves. For starters, I hate being alone so I never go eat unless I’m with a friend. Then when I do get to the dining halls, most of the food becomes repetitive after a week or two so my appetite isn’t the greatest. Although the food here IS good, it’s not amazing. On top of this, I have a lot of homework most of the time so I purposely skip lunch or dinner to keep working. On a really good day, I’ll have two pretty decent meals. But usually I only eat once a day and snack in my room.

 

All of this has happened in just three short weeks! I’m both anxious and excited to see what the future holds for me here at the University of Iowa. Thanks for following me through my journey, and I can’t wait to keep writing about my experience.

PS Wooooo, first blog post is done. Another good change – Lizbeth the blogger.