Today marked the last first day of my undergraduate college career. It went surprisingly well, a little stressful at times, but that comes with any first day of school!

My favorite class by far this semester is going to be my sign language class. We walked in and it was nothing but signing. My professor is deaf and for the first day had an interpreter but after today it’s going to be all on us to try and communicate with her through signs and writing. You are not allowed to speak in class 1) out of respect for our professor who can’t hear us and 2) to totally immerse ourselves in the deaf culture. It’s going to be really challenging but I think that is going to be the best way to learn the language.

Also, another awesome thing…my internship worked out! Tomorrow morning I am going to head down to South Campus to pick up the metro to head into downtown Buffalo. I will definitely be updating about what that involves because I’m really excited to see what they’re going to have me doing. It’ll be interesting as well as draining to be around that work.

In true Buffalo fashion the weather only cooperated for some of our new students moving in. Thursday and Friday were beautiful but now that the weekend has hit and some of our upperclassmen are moving back it is pouring. It’s one of the things that we love about Western New York. Here at Hadley we are just bummed because we had a pretty awesome welcome back picnic planned that now is going to have to wait until next weekend.

The start of the school year has brought up many mixed feelings for me. I’m SO excited to see everyone that has been gone all summer, especially since this means that my little sister gets to come back up. It’s been weird not having her around to run little errands with me so it’ll be nice to have a little piece of home back in Buffalo. But the start of the year also brings lots of new stresses as I am a senior this year so have to seriously start thinking about graduate school/what I want to do for the rest of my life, which is scary but exciting. Also, this year a really important person in my life heads off to grad school 3,000 miles away in England. It is definitely going to be a huge transition not having him around and trying to get use to only communicating over the computer via web-cams & e-mails but at the same time I’m really excited for him to have this awesome opportunity. How can you feel two completely different emotions for someone at the same time? I guess life’s just strange like that sometimes.

The Welcome Back Bash for new and returning students was in the Student Union last night. It was so much fun! They had a ton of free food and even rented a foam pit for people to dance in! It was cool to see all of the new students getting a chance to hang out and meet people. Now if I could just get all of my school supplies ready for tomorrow I’d have one less thing to worry about!

How can things be this stressful and classes haven’t even started yet!?

This past week I have been dealing with a full plate. Last Thursday my car decided that it was not going to be cooperative with me and start acting up. After a stop into the dealership on Monday it is still acting up, which does not make me a very happy camper.

Also, I have been having problems getting my internship straightened out and am starting to fear that it may not work out as well as I thought it would. I have an e-mail into my internship advisor so hopefully it will all work out for the best. I just like to get started on my hours as soon as possible because we do have to fit quite a bit into a semester so starting when classes start is helpful.

Training is winding down but now that training is coming to an end Opening Weekend is fast approaching! Opening Weekend is a little bit less stressful for the apartments then for the residence halls because we have had residents checking in continuously since their leases started in early August. However, a lot of people will still wait until the weekend before classes to move in which makes life a little bit crazy. We also are hosting a picnic in our village for our residence with a ton of food, a rock climbing wall and music!

All in all it should be a very busy but exciting weekend! Gearing up for new freshman to move in tomorrow!

One of the best part of University Residence Hall and Apartment summer training is our annual Fire Academy. This is the part of our training that teaches us the necessary information fire safety and what to do in event of emergency. We have different presentations on incidents that have occured at other colleges and we have discussions about different potential scenerios that could happen at UB. They even bring in the Getzville Fire Department and have them fill a hallway in the Ellicott complex with “show smoke” to give us a simulation of what it would be like to have to crawl through a smoke-filled hallway. Even though this is my second year doing it I still get a little scared being in that hallway, feeling my way through the building, trying to knock on doors as I crawl through. Every year we end with a “Live Burn” which is where they set up two mock dorm rooms and light them both on fire. One of the dorm rooms has a sprinkler system in it and the other does not. It is to display the importance of the sprinkler systems in the residence halls and apartments. Below are some pictures from the live burn. And all that damage was done in under three minutes!

This weekend was a tad quite. I worked a bit but spent most of Sunday gearing up for the stressful three or four weeks that are going to be kicking into gear. With the wrapping up of training and then the start of school I figured it was a good idea to take today to get some laundry done and clean my apartment a little!

Tonight kicked off the first night of our CA training. Like Steph kind of explained CA’s (Community Assistants) are almost like Resident Advisor’s for the apartments. We have responsibilities such as working in the community building in our complex, programming for our residents and taking an off duty cell phone in case of emergencies.  I was a little nervous about the job and how everyone was going to get along but the staff that we have has really come together and we had a BLAST at the cookout tonight.

Tomorrow is also happens to be our Assistant Complex Director’s birthday! So in honor of that we are all dressing up in his standard outfit, khaki shorts and a white T. I also spent the better part of tonight baking a cake which, if I do say so myself, is quite cute! Being in an apartment is sooo nice to bake in! Not that I didn’t love the residence halls but travelling the couple of seconds to check on the cake or having to clean right up after yourself could sometimes be a pest for someone like me who does so much baking. Now I know you’re SUPPOSE to clean right up after yourself in your apartment but the other nice thing about the on-campus apartments is the…DISHWASHER! A quick rinse, stick those puppies in there and then the cleanup is done! Makes my life a whole lot easier!

I’m exciting for training. I think that a lot of it is going to be really good information and just judging by the fun time that our staff had together tonight, we’re going to  be quite a handful for the coming week!

((But I still will miss Steph & the Admissions office!-I’m going to try and peak my head in when I can!))

Today one of my roommates finally moves in! All three of the girls that I’m going to be living with are some of my closest friends which ((hopefully)) will be a good thing. Either way I’m excited to finally have someone to come home to. Although it’s definitely going to be a transition for me. I have not only had the apartment to myself all summer but lived in my own room last year as an RA so after a year and a half of living on my own I’m going to have to remind myself what it’s like to be sharing a space with other people. I grew up with 5 other people in my house so I’m sure it won’t take me TOO long to remember what it’s like!

In other news Buffalo had a bit of a scare for a brief moment last week when there were rumors flying around that NFL quarterback Michael Vick was going to sign with the Buffalo Bills. I, as I’m sure many other Western New Yorkers, sat at work constantly hitting the refresh button on the ESPN page waiting for any news to be confirmed. Michael Vick (for those of you that aren’t avid football players) was arrested and convicted in connection with an illegal dogfighting ring down in Atlanta a couple of years ago. I’m sure everyone has a different opinion about whether or not he should be allowed back in the NFL hence the reason we were all watching so closely to see if Buffalo would sign him. In the end, after all of the rumors, he ended up signing with the Philadelphia Eagles.

The apartments have started to fill up and it’s been nice to see more and more people wandering around the complex. I’m not sure, however, how I feel about school starting…

Someone please pinch me and maybe I’ll wake up and it won’t be mid-August. As much as I’m ready for everyone to come back to Buffalo and start classes, I would totally be okay with an extra 2, 3, maybe 4 weeks of summer.

This past weekend my family got to come up to Buffalo for a swim meet that my sister was participating in. That would be why I’ve been MIA for a little while. My dad and my sister got up here last Wednesday night and then my mom joined the group on Friday night. It was really nice to be able to have some alone time with my mom since, even when I’m home, I don’t usually get that (that’s what happens with 4 children). And I very rarely get to see my sister swim so it was awesome to have all of my free time spent downtown at the pool watching her and her friends compete. Plus, what college student is going to pass up being fed for 5 days!

Today starts all of the new leases in the Hadley apartment complex so as of today everyone who is living in Hadley during this school year can check in so the next couple of weeks are going to be busy. As a result, I have a 5 hour shift in Admissions and then a 7 hour shift in Hadley so needless to say my butt is going to be in bed early tonight!

This past weekend has been nuts! In the last 48 hours I have worked a total of 24 hours! Ugh. Let’s hope the rest of August isn’t like this. But at least the weather is looking up a little bit!

The new leases have started in the apartments which translates into “all hands on deck” for the Community Assistants. I worked 5-8 on Friday night, 8:30 (actually 8:45 because my alarm didn’t go off, oops!) till 4 on Saturday and I’m back here again from noon to 8 pm Sunday. We haven’t had as many people check in as we thought we would which just means that people are probably waiting until the weekend before school starts to move in but personally I would rather have all of my stuff settled in my apartment before I have to head off to classes.

My family comes up this week and that is totally what is getting me through all of this working!! My sister has a swim meet at Erie County Community College downtown on Thursday and Friday of this week so some of them are going to come and watch her swim and BONUS visit me! I’m excited because I haven’t gotten to see my sister swim in a while and it’ll be nice to be able to see some of my family again, especially before the school year hits and life gets even crazier!