One Week in and Still Alive!

I just finished my first full week of classes (not counting last Thursday and Friday)! Plus I'm about two weeks into my official resident advisor responsibilities. I finally know all my residents' names (although I'm iffy on a few), and it seems like no one hates me so far. Always a plus. ;)

Last week was Fall Welcome Week, with a bunch of events for the new freshmen to get them ready for classes (plus a ton of meetings for me). Classes started on Thursday, which was also the day I finally took my driving test! I passed, of course. Nice way to start off the year! My classes are going really well so far - I'm taking Arabic, Bio, Cognitive Psych, and International Law as well as a couple of 1-unit seminars (so 19 units) - except that I'm a bit behind on my reading already. I can tell that Arabic is going to be a challenge. The homework load is doable but we're speeding through the characters and vocab, so it's a struggle to keep on top of everything.

Schedule-wise I'm doing fine - it's definitely a challenge balancing the RA job, academics, and my other activities, but I'm used to it from last year so I can handle it. This week I've been running around - I'm either in class, a meeting, the lab, or tabling for my fraternity (since rush is next week). Not much time for sleeping or meals! Like I said, I'm managing though. I'm eating dinner with my residents as much as I can, since the more I talk to them the more I realize how awesome they are! (And how incredibly lucky I am.) I've been trying to squeeze a social life into my busy schedule - saw Thor with a friend last weekend and went to see a campus production of "Midsummer Night's Dream" as well - which is also tricky but helps me to stay sane.

This weekend things should be toned down a bit since I'm the RA on-call! This essentially means that I am confined to my living area for the duration of the weekend so that if students lock themselves out or have any kind of crisis, I can be there to assist them. Not exactly my favorite part of the job, but it's an excuse to stay in the residence hall and catch up on studying. Hopefully I can catch up on sleep too!

Move-In Day!

It's Move-In Day! But not for me - for freshmen! That's right, today (half of) my new residents are moving in! (The other half move in tomorrow.) But rather than awkwardly knocking on their doors as they and their parents are trying to move furniture around, I thought I'd wait for them to come to my room with questions. I even wrote a note on everyone's whiteboards to say hi. And as a result of this brilliant planning, I've officially met 4 of my new residents. 4 out of 38 (with 20 moving in today). Go me. Not the brightest plan ever.

So I've spent my day reading (finished both Enchanted Ivy and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian), talking to my fellow RAs, writing postcards, answering about 3 questions, practicing for tomorrow night's community meeting, and familiarizing myself with the new GEs the freshmen will have to deal with. Fun stuff. I really will have to start going around knocking on doors and meeting people just to keep from being bored...

Also, obviously, training is over (as of yesterday). It was completely insane, especially with our bulletin boards/door decorations/etc. due on Wednesday, but I had a great time as well. I met a lot of the other RAs and, hopefully, learned exactly what I need to do for the job... Another bonus, I got my on-call schedule and it seems like everything is going to work out for me this quarter, schedule-wise! Nothing's conflicting with fraternity events yet! So much win.

I'll blog again soon after I've - in theory - met more of my residents and gotten a better idea of what it means to be an RA!

Welcome (Back) to Davis!

I've finally moved back to Davis and am three days into my resident advisor fall training (which is a two-week long training session all the RAs go through - INTENSE but really fun).

I moved in on Saturday afternoon after a family brunch in the morning. My new room is huge - it's seriously the biggest room I have ever had to myself. It has an amazing view of the courtyard as well, plus my bed is a windowseat. I'll have to post pictures sometime. So essentially, life back in the residence halls is amazing.

I got to see a lot of friends over the weekend, plus I went to Borders to take advantage of their going-out-of-business sales. I bought three books (including a hardcover) and a DVD for $21. Definitely proud of myself. I also got four books from the library to read, so I'm going to have to find time to read over the next two weeks before classes start. It'll be hard since I don't have a ton of free time with my RA training.

So training started on Tuesday morning, bright and early at 8:00 and ending at 9:00 that night. OUCH. Luckily we've been finishing at 5:00 or 6:00 the past couple of days, so the 13-hour day was a one-time thing. We have various sessions on educational resources, programming, communities, diversity, etc. I absolutely love the staff members on my team (the two other RAs in my residence hall plus the ones in the two other buildings in our area). I'm struggling to get to know all the other RAs (about 100 total for the entire campus) but I'm still meeting a lot of people outside my staff. I'm both excited and nervous for when the freshmen move in next weekend! I can't wait to meet all of them, but I'm such a perfectionist that I want to make sure I get everything right and that I'm being the best RA possible for them. Definitely a lot of pressure to be placing on myself.

Not sure how much I'll be blogging over the next two weeks, but I'll try to post an update again sometime before classes start! This is the first free night I've had all week so we'll see how that goes...