RevGalFridayFive....Back to College!

I haven't played FF in a gagillion weeks...but here I am today!
Martha writes over at RevGals,

Yesterday I returned my middle child for his second year of college. He's an experienced dorm resident, having spent two years at a boarding high school. In the lounge at the end of his floor I found a suite of This End Up furniture that took me back to my years in the Theta house at William and Mary. I remember polishing that furniture with my sorority sisters every spring, just before we headed off for Beach Week at Nags Head.




Mindful that many others are heading off to further schooling or delivering their loved ones to the institutions that provide it, here are five questions about dorm life.



1) What was the hardest thing to leave behind when you went away to school for the first time? Well, I had a car wreck a couple weeks before I was to leave for school, so I had to leave my car behind.  Other than that, I think I had everything I wanted or needed!



2) We live in the era of helicopter parents. How much fuss did your parents make when you first left home? The year, 1981.   My dad was busy with harvest, my step-dad busy with harvest, my mom wasn't all that empowered yet,  and so my youth director offered to take me. Basically, no fuss whatsoever.  I was the first in my family also to leave the state for school, but as I remember, I was pretty independent, too.



3) Share a favorite memory of living with schoolmates, whether in a dorm or other shared housing. Wow. So many.  My first year, I shared a "townhouse" with one bathroom and seven first year women.  It was crowded, but really fun.  Then, the second  year we finagled renting a house from a professor on sabbatical.  I remember many a night we would pop in Olivia Newton John's "Let's Get Physical" work out tape, complete in our leotards and legwarmers.  Oh, and boxes of wine in the fridge!  I then transferred to another school, and made friends with an amazing woman, who would be my roomie,  who taught me all about social justice, sojourners, keeping neat, and we shared a love of deep dish chicago pizza and fast scrabble.



4) What absolute necessity of college life in your day would seem hilariously out-of-date now?  An electric typewriter.



5) What innovation of today do you wish had been part of your life in college? Laptop computers, first year transition experience/classes, the internet, and netflix.



Bonus question for those whose college days feel like a long time ago: Share a rule or regulation that will seem funny now. Did you really follow it then? Both schools I attended were evangelical and conservative.  One had a no playing cards rule, both had a no dancing rule, and of course, no one allowed alcohol on or off campus.   I think they have both host dances now.  Ummm. Did I follow the no drinking rule?  Please. Just not on campus. ;-)  


Thanks for stopping by!