I'm Back To Living College Days

I finally made it back to Chattanooga on Thursday and it was great! I hadn't been back since I moved home at the end of April and between living in Franklin for four months and not seeing any of my friends it has certainly earned a place as one of the best things I did this summer. It began at 5:30 in the morning with an obnoxious alarm clock. I jumped out of bed, surprisingly, and was on the road by 6:20. Its about a two and a half hour drive from here to Chattanooga and since I live in central time and they're on eastern time I lost an hour. I got there about nine o'clock which was just in time for classes to begin and every single parking space on campus was full. My parking pass from last year expired on August 21 so I couldn't park in a lot anyways. The only problem was that a lot of other students hadn't bought passes yet either and so every parallel spot on the street was taken. Thirty minutes and eight dollars later I was walking to campus from my car which was parked all the way in downtown by the river.

When I finally made it to campus, fifteen minutes later, I went to visit some people in study abroad to fill them in on my travel plans. Then I called my old roommate from freshman year and as always things began to get a little crazy. She was leaving her apartment which was across campus from where I was and she was running late. She had to pick something up on her way to class and we agreed to meet in the middle at the top of what is known to the students as, "Cardiac Hill." Well, the city has decided to create a public "Greenway" that conveniently is supposed to come through the middle of campus and so they had completely torn up the main area by the UC where all of the academic buildings are. I could see the hill but I had no clue how to get there. I called my roommate back and five minutes later I had managed to navigate my way through the maze of fencing. I walked with her to class which is always exciting and as I was leaving her building I ran into her cousin who is another great friend of mine. We ended up hanging out at her apartment for a couple of hours. I was completely jealous by the way. Its upstairs in an old house and has three bedrooms each of which has a fire place! I'll be living in a dorm room the size of a shoe box for the next four months while they're living in what, for a college student, could be considered luxury.

Later I met up with my "buddy" who I met in scuba class last fall. We were hoping to get an off campus apartment when I get back in the spring but we have pretty much given up on that. We're currently planning to move into a dorm together for the spring semester and then look for an apartment towards the end of the semester that we can move into for the summer. We wasted about an hour at the housing office and then went to the UC so I could renew my student ID. Its amazing how rude the university staff is when they think that you're not a student. I tried to use a computer in the library during some free time since I had no where else to go and for the first time in my two years there someone asked to see my ID. I showed it to him and and when he noticed that it had expired he proceeded to kick me off the computer. I tried to explain the situation and convince him that I really am technically still a student there but he wouldn't go for it. I left quietly, though feeling a little rejected. Finally, I went to hang out with a friend that had lived in an apartment below me last year. We talked about everything and nothing for probably three hours, it was great. I left at about ten to drive home. It rained most of the way and I got back about eleven but it was worth it all to see my friends. It made me realize what I'm going to miss while I'm in Swansea but I'll be back in four months and I can do it all again. It was great though to be away from home and back at college even if only for a day.