Best case/Worst case scenario

I think there’s a small part of every incoming college freshman’s mind that is afraid they won’t make friends and that they’ll be the sad, lonely kid eating alone at lunch.  It’s a legitimate fear.   At a large school like MU, there are a lot of people.  What if you never find people you get along with?  What if you’re lost in the crowd and left wandering alone and friendless?

Obviously, that’s the worst-case scenario.  Before arriving on campus, the logical part of my brain was confident that I would meet people to hang out with and that all would go well, but of course there was still that small part of my mind that was entertaining the worst-case scenario.

Interestingly enough, it was in a room full of turkey cheese wieners that this worst-case scenario was banished from my mind.  And, when I refer to a room full of turkey cheese wieners, I literally mean that there were boxes, bags, and trays everywhere filled with raw hotdogs made from turkey and filled with cheese.

It was not an appealing sight, and as part of Step Forward Day, our job was to work in this room at the Central Missouri Food Bank and to fill plastic bags with turkey cheese wieners for approximately three hours.  Sounds miserable, right?  Well, it certainly wasn’t the most enjoyable experience of my first semester in college, but sifting through boxes of turkey cheese wieners with others from the seventh floor surprisingly wasn’t completely miserable—I can look back on the experience with humor and not disgust.

We hadn’t been living on the seventh floor together for very long, so we passed the time discussing favorite movies and TV shows and some even composed a turkey cheese wiener song.  I knew then that if I was hanging out with people that could make sorting turkey cheese wieners bearable, then I could be sure that I wouldn’t have to worry about being miserable or friendless.

Fast-forward into the semester: If you were took look into the window of the kitchen in the basement of Mark Twain on a particular night, you would have seen a group of girls from the seventh floor baking cookies and busting a move.  With the lights off and the scent of cookies wafting from the oven, we turned up the volume on the ipod speakers, had a dance party, and let loose.  At this point, my worst-case scenario was an irrelevant memory, because I had found a group of girls that could do something as carefree and random as having a cookie baking dance party.

We’ve spent a night coloring with coloring books and a large box of crayons, watching Hercules and Muppets Take Manhattan, and most recently decorating the lounge with paper snowflakes, a paper fireplace with stockings for everyone on the seventh floor and a festive wreath.  These may not be typical college experiences, but I’ve certainly enjoyed myself, and overall I consider this first college semester a best-case scenario.

Advertisement

~ by audreyraymond on December 16, 2009.