Ok, I could copy and paste my whole saga about my feet and getting Daughter off to BU etc, but you’ve already read that. So, for all those Mumpers (Tumpers?) who went to college/military/sleep away camp, use this thread to tell of your move in experience (not the make out sessions behind the boat house or the drunken nonsense on the Quad)–JUST the move in.
In 1980, my father and I drove out to Colorado and he (almost) literally dropped me off at the front door. He waited until I got my key, took my suitcases upstairs. He started to make my bed, and I told him he was doing it wrong (no hospital corners-mama raised me right), he got ticked and said good bye and left.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times… Oh, wait. Somebody already used that. Dick somebody, I think. Anyhoo, it was back in '69. Mom and Dad drove me to Boston’s Kenmore Square. Well, actually, Dad got lost a couple times first because he never WOULD ask for directions. The dorm was an old posh hotel. The room was quite large and we had our own bath. I got there before my roommate so got first pick. I don’t remember much else. Hey, c’mon, it was the sixties, dude!
bows to the applause My first magic trick has succeeded wuunderfully!
But let’s see. I moved to college in 1997, in Tokyo. Both my parents went over with me and set up my apartment–filling my fridge, buying cleaning products, toilet paper, etc.–while I spent the day doing all the introduction classes.
According to the parents, buying all the stuff was quite a hassle since they didn’t speak Japanese, but I wasn’t there with them, so I don’t have any amusing stories.
Overall it was pretty bland. But then I’m the sort of guy to think that pretty much anything short of being landed on the moon is basically bland.
I counted the minutes until I left for college. I could not wait to get out of my dysfunctional house and off to college. I am the youngest of four and watched each sibling leave before me.
My parents drove me up to Boston and helped me move in (sixth floor- no elevator!). They joked how I would be chasing after the car to come home (they had, and have, no clue how unhappy I was). The joke was on me- I left my dorm keys in the car and did chase after the car to catch them.
They actually thought I was desperate to come home, even after I showed them teh keys. :smack:
I came home that winter and summer break, and then never lived at home again- I stayed up at college for most summers living with my then boyfriend and working.
I was poor. I had no car, no TV, nothing. I was happy to be free.
Several stories of moving in… the two most memorable ones, though, were –
The first time leaving home. I was living in the US at the time (family spent two years here, 1980-1982.) Second year I went away to U of Rochester for my “real” Freshman year. 10 hours’ drive from Boston. First time for an extended time really living away from home… No real problems, but burned in my mind forever.
Second… back in Israel… going to Boot Camp for Basic Training. Nothing gets you ready for the reality of an Army Boot Camp. It’s… different. Again, no really outstanding horror stories (well, not in the context of Basic Training, anyway…) – but a truly life-changing experience.
Had to get there by bus and train, too. And figure out where to stay overnight in Haifa if I didn’t want to stay on the (especially squalid) temporary base where we were being “processed…” Ended up being invited to sleep over a local boy’s place (he lived about 20 minutes away.) Little did I know he happened to be gay… So after he tried angling the conversation for a while, he realized I was actually striaght, and gave up We stayed good friends all through Basic
I went to college in my home town. I didn’t live in the dorms. However, I did move into my first apartment while in college. Not much to it really. A one bedroom furnished apartment in an old house near the school. For a little while I had a roommate but bein’ as I was developin’ into a curmudgeon even then, that didn’t last long. I liked the apartment and lived there for several years until I ventured off elsewhere’s.
I did grad school over a three year period of time. For five months each year I’d go to school one week out of each month, Sunday night through Friday afternoon. There was a group of fifteen of us doin’ this so we arranged with a local hotel in Athens, Jawja to rent us a block of rooms at a good discount. They were happy to do so cause we were steady income for that week. I received a stipend to deal with the expenses which helped a lot.
I never did the dorm thing, well, except for a month mini-mester, and it was so long ago, I’ve forgotten all about it.
However, about 7 months after that, I enlisted in the Navy, and on Aug 3, 1973. That day started early - my recruiter picked me up in the dark of the morning and hauled me off to take my oath and do the last paperwork. Then we moseyed over to Friendship Airport (this is before it became BWI) and my fambly was there to see me off.
I don’t remember the exact timeline, but the flight from Baltimore to Orlando was non-stop, and the Orlando airport was under construction when I arrived. I dragged my bag to where I was supposed to call for the bus to the base. Eventually, a bunch of us gathered and were eventually bussed to the Recruit Training Command (Women). Mostly I remember the rain (it rained all but 3 afternoons of the 8 weeks I was there.) We arrived in time for a late supper in the chow hall before we were directed to our company areas.
The other vivid memory was of cold. The house where I grew up wasn’t air conditioned, but the barracks sure were. I slept in my jammies and robe and I was still freezing under the covers that first night. I expect that’s because I was on a top bunk and probably under a vent. I remember glaring bright lights and lots of strange girls from all over the country. And if I could remember where I put my journal, I could recount exactly what I was thinking that first night…
It was the start of an adventure of a lifetime. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world!
I did move into the dorms my freshman year of college (it was a required part of a residency program.) I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure my grandparents assisted me.
What I remember more clearly, though, is that I overexerted myself that week and came down with some very bad flu-like symptoms that lasted the first two weeks of my living there. So while everyone was out making friends and forming cliques, I was sick in bed. Then, when I was finally healed up, on our very first week of class a plane smashed into the World Trade Center and the 12% New Yorker demographic in our dorm collectively lost its shit, including my roommate.
The good news, though – I didn’t know it, but I had already met my future husband. If you’d have inquired about that guy from freshman orientation I would have told you I supposed he was a nice guy, in a nerdy sort of way. I waved to him in the halls, but at no point did I swoon. The following year he helped me move out and assemble a computer desk which took about 10 hours. He stayed with me until four in the morning and ended up sleeping over–in the same bed (completely innocent, I swear!)
In the midst of confusion (because I was a clueless idiot) I remember blubbering to my mother, ‘‘Do you think he might like me?’’
‘‘Olives,’’ she said frankly, ‘‘I love you to death, but even I wouldn’t spend 10 hours with you assembling a desk.’’
Thus a romance was born. Thank you, P.I.A. computer desk. Thank you.
Grrrr, every time I try to post the board times out on me.
Anyway, I never got to go away to college, but I did head off to summer camp most years. I don’t remember anything bad associated it with it. In fact, I couldn’t wait for my mom to leave. I pretty always told her I’d schlep my stuff and she could go.
When I moved out, I pretty much moved myself. My mother came shopping with me to a swap meet to help me find a kitchen table and we bought some chairs to go around the table from an old friend of hers. It was pretty much no muss, no fuss.
I’m skipping tonight’s workout. I still feel like I was run over by a semi about ten times.
Hm. I went up with a suitcase on Labour Day weekend, and my Dad drove the rest of my stuff up the following weekend. For the first few weeks, while the college was looking for an apartment for us (me, the girl who turned out to be Best Friend, and my extreme fundy roommate) we lived with our math professor and his wife, who were lovely. A few weeks later we moved into an apartment on the third floor of a Victorian monstrosity owned by a junk dealer. There were little paths in the clutter. It was exciting.
Especially after I dislocated my knee just before Commencement.
I moved into the dorms ten years ago. pauses, lets that sink in, decides it’s definitely time to get out of this town My first fun adventure of the day was actually getting a room assignment because the university never sent me one. I ended up with some chick who stole my mom’s star sapphire ring by the end of the year.
After dropping off a friend at a bible college in Iowa, his brother and it were thown in jail for speeding in Wisconsin. The brother was not even close to speeding, and I was simply sitting there, but we had Ontario plates, so that was that.
After a day in the can, the brother called his mom for her credit card number, which he used to pay the fine. She cancelled the transaction as soon as we were out of the state.
Shortly before the border in Detroit, a piece of shit unmarked car flashing an interior red light pulled us over. We were not speeding, and the fellow who came out was dressed in a wife beater, looking as reputable as his car, so I took off for the border, figuring that either he was yet another corrupt American cop, or he was a Detroit fraudster.
My college move in experience was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, all 8 of them (because I had to completely clear out at the end of the fall semester, even if I was going to return to the same room in the spring) were fairly uneventful. The only difference senior year was that I had a place off campus. Barely off campus. If I walked 30 yards to the west, I was on campus. But it felt more independant, so I was happy.
I do have a strong recollection of one trip to Brandeis to help my sister move in (I was 3 or 4 at the time) - it may have been the only time they let me come along, because I clearly remember wanting to stay there with her (because I saw other kids my age wandering around - it never occured to me that they were only there to help their siblings move in) and being very tantrumistic about it.
Oh, wait. Somebody already used that. Dick somebody, I think. Anyhoo, it was back in '69. Mom and Dad drove me to Boston’s Kenmore Square. Well, actually, Dad got lost a couple times first because he never WOULD ask for directions. The dorm was an old posh hotel. The room was quite large and we had our own bath. I got there before my roommate so got first pick. I don’t remember much else. Hey, c’mon, it was the sixties, dude! 
We stayed good friends all through Basic 