New Places Always Leads to New Friends

Hearing the blaring loud alarm at 8 AM in the morning, I immediately rushed to prepare for the day ahead of me. Today, we were all supposed to meet up at the lounge and make our way to Kendra’s car. Kendra told us we had to come gather at 8:45 AM, but ended up meeting us at 9 AM since she was lost along the way. Initially, we planned on getting our box fans and buying souvenirs right away, but because the store didn’t open until 10 AM, we decided to eat a tasty breakfast at The Grange.

Esmeralda had to get her permanent ID, so we came with her to get it. The building was amazingly vintage.

It was really packed.

When we arrived at the Brown bookstore, we made it our top priority to buy souvenirs for Amelia. Afterwards, we purchased several pieces of merchandise for ourselves. It was difficult to find anything that fit me in that store, the sweaters and shirts just weren’t small enough. Even the one size fits all hats were completely loose when I attempted to wear them. Luckily, the kids section had sizes that were a perfect fit on me. I used my budget to buy a sweater and phone pocket, and extra cash to purchase a mini flag and two hats.

Sipping my mango milk tea that I bought near the bookstore, we immediately went to the orientation in Salomon 101. The halls were packed with many students, and the four of us ended up sitting at the balcony of the auditorium. There, we listened to the presentation the faculty gave us. They first covered safety procedures when students travel around campus. Then, they talked about other important things such as technology usage, Brown Bucks, and RAs for each building and floor. At the end of the presentation, students would follow their RAs to do group activities in The College Green.

The weather was perfect for a whole day of walking.

Since our RA, Marissa, was out sick, the other floor RA named Ashley covered for us and her own group. She made us do an icebreaker game that made students stand in the center of a circle, state their hobby or likings, and other students would high five them in the center. Whoever walks out of the circle last would be the next one to stand in the circle.

The next icebreaker we did had students in one circle, clockwise, each student had to tell everyone their name and do a unique action. The next person would have to memorize the name and action, this ends up accumulates until the last person recites everyone’s names and actions.

When we were finished introducing ourselves, where we’re from, and what courses we were taking, we took a campus tour with Ashley. She pointed out the buildings each of us would be going to for our courses, and I was in luck, because she was one of the TAs for Women in Leadership. She offered to wait for the students in this program so we could that she could accompany us while we head to class. I’ve always been bad at directions, this little offer will definitely make things easier for me!

During all of this, I decided to reach out to several other students that were in the group. I met and introduced myself to three people today: Naye, Defne, and Daisy. They were all very friendly and talking to them was interesting, especially since they’ve all had different experiences due to where they live. I was blown away by the amount of diversity that revolved inside of the pre-college programs, I’ve met students that came from Turkey, Argentina, Portugal, China, and lots more.

From left to right: myself, Defne, Naye, and Daisy.

At 7 PM, we all met up at The College Green once again in order to go to the Activities Fair. There was lots of music and games around the field, and everyone was enjoying themselves. I had a lot of fun spending time with the new friends I made, too.

At 8:30 PM, everyone from Ashley and Marissa’s group met in Perkin’s Hall. We all shared our contact information to Ashley, since the second RA was still out sick. We also discussed about agreements on RA and community expectations, which was in order to keep things nice and civilized. When we were finished establishing those rules, we all headed our own separate ways.

Ashley treated us to the tasty chocolate and made sure to give every person at least one piece.

I had fun learning more about the residents at Brown today, I’m definitely eager to start class tomorrow!