518 words on individuality and my new home

Brevity is the soul of wit when you spent all day unpacking and organizing your belongings, attending meetings and welcome sessions, hiking up and down hills, and saying goodbye to your father, all in the name of moving into your new home.

Therefore, I really will be brief tonight.

I moved into my new home: a white room in the basement of a big, orange, brick building. It’s actually much more fun than I make it sound. I’ve got a great roommate who thought to bring all sorts of cool, homey things that I would have thought to bring, but never actually bought (remember: I don’t like stuff). I brought a lot of stuff (posters, books, a big, yellow cello case) that add a lot of personality to the white canvas. The room’s conveniently situated right next to both the bathroom and the laundry room. My building is right in the middle of campus; there are some cool perks that I should definitely write about later when I’m not itching to crawl into bed.

Not that I really know, but I would bet that our room would win a “best decorated” award. It totally encapsulates the motto of individuality. More on that when I’m organized enough to take pictures.

In my first 13 hours here I’ve discovered how pertinent individuality is to this place. Hair styles were the obvious markers of individuality. Pink hair. Blue hair. No hair (for women and men alike). Dreds. Fros. The crazy, big, curly hair that I wish I could pull off but too am too afraid to attempt. The next big thing was makeup: lots, and lots of makeup, with lipstick being a common thread. As for clothing: everything from overalls to crop tops, from skinny jeans to booty skirts, and lots other garments any trendy thrift store could wish to sell. Let’s not forget the gauges and tattoos either. This is not a criticism; it’s just an observation that my peers make their mark in their presentation.          

I realized this before, of course, but wandering around with the other 390 freshman forced me to look around and notice how common I outer appearance is. My hair is blond-going-brown. I have earring holes, but that’s it. Today I wore a my green Ohio t-shirt in hopes that my peers might remember me by my Midwestern roots. That’s another discovery. I found one surface-level trait that makes me an individual: I’m from Ohio. I met one other girl from Cleveland. I would say, “I’m from Columbus” and get the slow-nod of approval. “Ooooh, you’re not from a coast. That’s cool.”

(The coast of Lake Erie, if that counts.)

Most people are from California. Lots of kids are from the East Coast. We Midwesterners are sprinkled in here and there. I can type very confidently, though I don’t actually know this for sure, that there are more foreign students than Ohioans. All I have to say as I pass the 500 words marker is that I’m very cool with that. But, for the heck of it, O-H!

…

I’m not at that home anymore.