ahh moving in..

So other than the thought of summer being half over depressing me.. I've seen some fliers around and about for Greeters, and that just naturally leads me to thinking about move in day.

So first off, you may wonder just what the heck you need to bring to college. Anything you think you want, really, but don't bring all or even half the contents of your room. What I found necessary first year was a couple fans, my laptop + printer, clothes, towels + toiletries, flip flops for shower, shoes, bedsheets + pillowcases, desk lamp, laundry hamper, pictures + momentoes of home, and some type of small filing rack for all the papers for different classes. Of course, what you bring depends on you, but try to bring something that's YOU and can be a conversation starter if people walk by or drop into your room. You'll get to meet a lot of people this way.

Secondly, you may also wonder how you're going to lug your new mini fridge up three flights of stairs. That's where the Greeters come in. On move in day, you'll see students dressed in orange shirts with a nametag on the front that says "Hello, my name is [blank]". Grab one of them and they'll happily point you to the right building or lug up your suitcases. I was a Greeter the move in day of my second year -- a lot of people do it because you get to move in a day early and beat all the move in traffic and general noise and congestion. When it was time to do my Greeter duty though, I almost wish I hadn't signed up. Ladies and gents, that day is HOT. Come in tanks and shorts, you can change into more presentable stuff later if you want. I would say come in as little clothing as possible but not being obscene. In between trips to the car, the sun beating down on you, going up 10 thousand flights of stairs into unair-conditioned areas.. you'll want to die. =P

mmm i do so love food!

One of our bosses treated us to a lunch from Mellow Mushroom today to celebrate the end of filing. (All those forms you sent in with our application? Each one goes in a manilla envelope, lovingly processed by an intern.) I love Mellow Mushroom, their pizza is fabulous, and so is the restaurant. I haven't ever been to a Trivia Night -- but I hear it's standing room only with free food given out for teams with the best/quirkiest names.

Some other favorite places to eat in Charlottesville... a lot of them happen to be on the Corner. I swear by Jimmy John's for sandwiches -- they make the best gourmet subs and sandwiches. And they deliver, but don't take 40 minutes to deliver. I also love Lemongrass for Thai food -- excellent food at good prices. I'm a huge fan of Bodo's Bagels -- they're basically sandwich bagels. I usually get a three cheese melt or a roast beef bagel.

Some other good places to eat are Bonefish Grill out on 29, it's actually where I went for the one year anniversary with my boyfriend. Any place really on the downtown mall -- though be warned if you sit outside, a bee might decide you're a delicious flower and stop on your head for the longest time, as a bee did to me.

Charlottesville in general is a pretty good place for food, our restaurant to resident ratio is actually 2.5 to 1, so you'll never be wanting for new places to go to.

sats suck. so do rankings.

Who here thinks standardized testing rocks? (Please don't let me have a comment from someone whose hobby is ACT testing!) I think it sucks. Horribly. It's time consuming, non constructive, and just spews out another set of numbers for students to feel inferior with.

Why the sudden rant? I had a long conversation last night with one of my friends who's still in high school. He's ready to take his fourth SAT. Eurgh. Cue vomit. His reasons why? He feels that he could really go up another 30 points on his scores. He's already scoring over 2200 on his highest combined scores. *facepalm* That, my friends, is unnecessary overkill. At some point all the testing has to stop, if you can't break a.. 2000 barrier, don't beat yourself up trying to do it. Seriously, numbers aren't everything. These days, I feel that an admissions committee would look at the scores, think "Alright, they can do the work. Next! What makes them special?" And no, I don't think having a perfect GPA and ACT score makes you special.

But really, don't. stress. out!! If you've done your best, you've done your best. Really. Relax, you'll be fine.

Now, why did my friend want to get such a high score? Of course, his parents want him to go to a school ranked in the top 10 of US News and World Report. *cue fit of irritation* Rankings also really, really annoy me. They're so... useless. Do they measure how much the students learn? Do they measure how happy people are at the college? How about how openminded the administration is? How useful the education is, seriously? Nope to all four, yet people go by them as if they're a holy text. They're also really regionalized.

Take UVA for example. Most of you guys probably know that UVA is considered a public Ivy and is one of the top schools in the nation. (Yadda yadda how awesome we are, hehe). What you might not know is that we have a vastly different reputation say in.... Asia. There we're actually known as a safety school, because we're public. Or that we're not a good school at all because we don't have the same prestige as an Ivy League. How different is that? Or let's not even go overseas, let's stay in the continental United States. Those of you on the East Coast. How good do you think California's UC schools are? I've heard some East Coast friends bash it to heck and back, firmly convinced that it's barely a step above high schools. West Coast friends, that's obviously not the case. How about those of you on the West Coast? How good do you think Swarthmore, Wellesley and UMCP are? ..I hope you've heard of them.. Precisely my point.

Nothing irks me more than hearing someone say, "Oh I'm going to be flipping burgers in McDonalds when I'm 30 because I didn't get into Cornell." ..no you won't. Your life will be perfectly fine. Don't pay attention to rankings so much when you're looking at colleges, and don't focus on numbers so much. It's what else is written on the application that really makes the person.

it's a small world after all...

Alright, meeting one of my alum friends on the sidewalk as I was leading a tour today got me to thinking.

So straight off the bat, those of you coming from really small schools might be concerned or even intimidated by the thought of 13,000 undergrads. I know I was, there was only 200 people in my graduating class. But coming here, I've never felt like a face in the crowd. I might've mentioned this before but it feels like an amazingly small community sometimes. It's crazy how so many people know each other. You often hear about a six degrees of separation between people knowing people here, but it's more like two, three degrees of separation at UVA. I absolutely cannot walk anywhere without bumping into someone I know. Don't be worried.

For those of you who like the size though, there's definitely something always happening and new people to meet. I also come from a huge city of around seven million people, so I definitely know what city life is like. In Charlottesville, I really don't feel like I'm missing out. I've gotten used to Charlottesville life and in fact rather like it. Our basketball arena was recently finished -- the JPJ arena and we've had people like The Eagles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Maroon 5 and Justin Timberlake performing in it. I wish I'd remember the day the Maroon 5 tickets went on sale. By the time I finally remembered, they were sold out. *sigh*

But back to my alum friend. Even people who've already graduated, they come back all the time. It's not uncommon to walk into a restaurant or down the street and see someone who graduated two years ago. And I keep bumping into my friends all over Grounds and in Charlottesville. What a place.

midsummers!

It's that time of the year again, when a lot of fraternity and sorority members come back to clean their houses -- aka lots of traffic and parties. I thought I'd address the subject of Greek life and parties in this post, since a lot of you may be interested.

Greek life at UVA - around 30% of UVA students are Greek. It may sound like a huge percentage, but it's not a big deal at all. There's no divide between Greek students, none of the 'you suck we rule' type mentality. People here don't really care what you're involved in, there's over 500 clubs so there's so much to do! Basically, if you're Greek, good for you, if not, more power to you. You have more time to do other things, and you will not be bored on the weekends just because you're not Greek. There is so. much. to. do here it's kind of insane.

Of course with Greek life comes parties. I've been told that we have some of the better parties in this area, but hey, who knows? I went to a couple my first year and quickly got bored. Guess that's not really the scene for me -- and it's alright here if you don't want to drink. There's diversity across all spectrums here and a lot of that includes people who love to party, people who find it's okay, people who are bored by it, and people who don't like to party. I have an active social life and hang out with a ton of friends on weekends. So really, come here and have fun, in whatever way that defines fun for you.