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August 12, 2002
Getting Reoriented
I just got back from Freshman orientation at Fullerton. This was the one where we all watched skits and got to know each other and learn about college life and stuff. It was interesting. I actually met another former Mt. Carmel-ian, which was pretty surprising, since there are only about seven of us - and I'd carpooled up with one of them (Sally, in case anyone's interested).

The car ride was interesting enough in itself. For one thing, the speedometer stopped working about half way up there. Sally's mom seemed pretty cool about it, but something like that would freak me out if it ever happened to me.

Another thing: I saw two trucks full of chickens on the way up. The first one was an oddity, since formerly, I had never in my life seen a truck full of chickens. Then, about an hour later, we passed another truck full of chickens. I just thought I'd share that with you all in case some apocalyptic event involving truckloads of chickens occurs in the near future. You heard it from me first.

Orientation itself was really nothing to talk about. Like I said, they had some skits and some speakers, and then lunch. They fed us pretty well at orientation - or at least they fed me really well. We all got to make buffet-style sandwiches, where everyone would line up and load up on whatever meats and cheeses they wanted. Most people were there nicely placing their single slice of roast beef between two neatly arranged pieces of bread; it made me feel kind of out of place when I sat down with a good 3/4 pound, football sized mass of meat, cheese, and bread.

I had somewhat of an odd run-in while I was walking back across campus from getting my parking permit (I seem to be noticing odd occurences more since watching Signs). There I was, walking along while simultaneously trying to shove the parking thing in my backpack, when I hear some raspy voice call out my name behind me. I briefly tried to determine what raspy-voiced guy might know my name on this campus, 70 miles from home, before I remembered the large name sticker plastered to my shirt. Nevertheless, I whipped around to find myself looking at a middle-aged man in a wheelchair holding a cardboard "Does Jesus

You?" sign. "Jesus loves you," he said.

Now, I've always known that talking, in general, is one of my weaknesses. I can never seem to say the right thing when someone needs comforting; I don't know how to accept a compliment or reply to an insult; and I sure as heck don't know the proper response to random religious comments made by raspy-voiced strangers. Seriously - short of delving into biblical contemplations with this man - how is one supposed to respond to such a comment? Being the master of the English language that I am, I think I was able to mutter something like "Eh, yea... thanks. Uh... have a good day" before walking away (at a relatively quick pace). I'm sure he means well, and I'm glad that Jesus loves me and all, but these kind of things just make me a bit uneasy.

I'm leaving tomorrow to go backpacking with my uncle, and I won't be back until Sunday. I'll probably have some backpacking stories when I get back. Right now, I've reformatted the website so that it'll expand to fit larger resolution windows, but I won't be able to do anything else major until I get set up at school - then I'll see if I can get other people posting here.