If you asked me a year ago how I think my first two weeks of college would be, it would be nothing like what it actually was. High school me would think that I would still be at home where I’m familiar with my surroundings.

I didn’t think I would be at the University of Iowa, is what I’m saying.

But here I am, 11 months later, in the main library at 11 a.m. on a Monday morning, typing this post.

As a city girl from Seattle, Washington, I didn’t really think I had it in me to go to a college that was 2 hours ahead of me. But I can’t say I hate it. In fact, I kind of really like it here.

My mom and I flew to Chicago on Sunday the 13th, and we drove 3 hours to get to the campus. We brought all our luggage into the hotel room and just knocked out after dinner because we were that tired. In our defense, our flight was at 6 a.m. and we stayed up the entire night before.

Move-in day goes by in a blur. It felt like I was doing everything and nothing at the same time for 8 hours. All the lifting, pushing, opening boxes, the increasingly large pile of trash in the corner of my room, the “oh shoot I didn’t bring that”, and the putting something over here then taking it away because it “doesn’t look good there”, had me sweating like I had been in the desert for two weeks even with the air conditioning (I love Mayflower). Not to mention the make-up shopping we had to do.

The first event I attended was the Silent Disco. I ran into some friends on my floor who invited me to go with them, and we walked all the way from Mayflower to Hubbard Park. I will admit, I initially had my doubts about this event, and l was wondering how on earth a disco could be silent, but it was kind of funny walking past Catlett and hearing loud chanting that was definitely not coming from Catlett. As we got closer, we saw a large cluster of red, green, and blue lights huddled together. We got our headsets and started jamming out to new hits and childhood throwbacks, but I liked hearing other people telling their friends to “go to blue go to blue” or that “red is good trust me”.

The next thing I went to was Kickoff at Kinnick. There were so many people going to Kinnick Stadium that a special service bus had to pick us up at Mayflower, and even that couldn’t fit everyone. We got to the stadium and immediately noticed that there were two beach balls that were being tossed in the air. The Kickoff was more fun than I thought; the traditions we were introduced to were really exciting (my favorite was definitely the Wave), the performances by the dance and cheer teams were cool, and the marching band had some sick tunes. Coach Gable’s speech was really funny too (don’t get me wrong, it was still inspirational, but I thought he was really funny).

After a hectic week, classes began with a heated start (both literally and figuratively). Filled with navigating through crowds and making sure I was in the right building, I slowly got used to my class schedule and routine. I was lucky to have two of my classes skip discussion sessions this week, so I got to end a few hours early on two days. Reading through the class syllabi, writing short paragraphs about myself, and taking course expectations quizzes, it seems like this won’t be too bad, although who knows how much I’ll regret saying that in a few weeks’ time.

Needless to say, my first two weeks on campus were hectic. But they were hectic in a fun way. I’ve met a lot of new people and gotten a feel of what my next 4 years would roughly be like. I’m excited to explore more and experience the Hawkeye life!