The Move-in Process

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Hello friends, followers, casual blog enthusiast etc.,

My name is Daniel and I am a first year student at the University of Toledo. I have been inspired by events, as well as people to write this blog you are reading today. This is a blog site, so if grammar errors offend you, this may not be the place for you. This is not my professional writing class, and I will not treat it like it is because this is the place I am going to tell my story, and like any other great story teller, I am going to do it my own way. First of all, you may not agree with everything said in this blog, and that's ok. This is a blog written in the perspective of a 19 year old, upper middle class, biracial college freshman. We're not always going to see eye to eye, but that's the beauty of writing, you don't have to.

Let's start with the title of this bad boy, "The move-in process". No, this is not going to be a detailed story of the day I moved into college. This title more refers to the fact that this blog is going to be a long bumpy ride, and you better be prepared to move-in to my mind and get comfortable. I realize that that last statement was pretty corny, and I am going to continue to stand by it. Get used to it people, you are choosing to be here.

When I was going through my college selection process, many things ran through my mind. How close do I want to be to home? How many people from my high school am I going to have to see on a regular basis? Whats the weather like? (Like I really gave two craps about weather) Can I see myself excelling here? All that nonsense you tell yourself when you really think its your decision. If I had it my way, I would probably be at the University of Cincinnati sitting in my dorm room preparing for finals. But I'm not, and while that fact may haunt me of what could have been, I am ever grateful that I "chose" UT.

I did not have the greatest relationship with my friends back home after my last summer as a high school student, and wanted nothing to do with them after I left for college. Some of you may just pin this to teenage angst, and might be a little right, but that is a story for another day. With that being said, I was very open to the possibility of new friends. This proved to be very confusing.

I was apart of a...assimilation...type program for incoming business students. I can call it that because when I first signed up, I thought it was going to be a program for advanced students, getting ahead in the college of business world by meeting professors, going to local businesses, and basically seeing what the college was like before we got in. I'm not a nerd I swear! This proved however to be very wrong. The process of meeting people in this interesting program was that of a Lion chasing down zebras in the Serengeti. When I say that, the picture in most of your heads was probably a bunch of the really cool kids, clinging to anything and anyone to reassure them of their high school glory days. No? That's only me... well fine, I guess. In actuality, it was more of the few normal people enrolled in the program, desperately seeking out anyone who could carry on a conversation more than just about "that time I went to the auto show"...cool story bro. Not to say cars aren't cool, I just don't want to be shown a picture of one for an hour straight.

Eventually I made it through the dust cloud. I had found four people who I thought my crazy messed up background fit in with. I will not disclose their names because I decided to make this blog on the fly and really don't know if they'd be super ok with me talking about them, but I digress. The first one was an old high school "friend". By "friend", I mean she just cheated off of me in every class together and I happened to get pretty good grades in both. Go figure. The second was a girl she had met before I got there from Cincy, she will come up later on. The third, a guy from west Cleveland, who I thought was going to be my best friend for four years, at the time. The last, a kid from the burbs of Chicago, a city not very different from my own. This was a good and bad thing. Eventually he told us he was going to be too cool to hang out with us once classes started up and he rushed his fraternity. Pi Kapp. Booo. Never the less, these were the people I was going to be spending my next week and a half of "pre-college" with. They weren't the best, but they were loyal.

Confused yet? Good, you shouldn't be, this is where it gets interesting. On the last day of this bitter-sweet program, I happened to stumble upon another camper at subway. I really couldn't tell you why I was in the student union because I really don't know. I wasn't hungry, and I didn't have my money with me to get anything even if I wanted it. The kid I saw, I had literally never spoken a word to during the entire program. I wasn't even going to say a word to him, but he recognized me and the nice person that I am said hi and we ate dinner together. This sparked my newest friendship that would lead to me meeting my best friend and long lost brother. No, he is not my actual brother.

We were bored and most of the other students were starting to move into the dorms, which meant open parties. I was not always this wild party animal that many know me as today. I really didn't like big groups of people of whom I didn't know or have a ton in common with, but I chose to go out for the sake of my new group of friends. This is where I met my best friend Chalrie. The kid I had been eating dinner with that night lived on the second floor of my dorm hall, which meant all of his roommates moved in days before mine (5th floor). His roommate was Charlie, his childhood friend who also chose to go to UT and being childhood friends with Brandon, chose to room with him. The funny thing is, when I was looking for roommates through the online service, I had requested to room with them because they were my top matches. The system asks you a series of questions and matches you up with people most like you. It gives you a percentage and me and Chalrie got a 95% match, and me and Brandon 86%. I would later learn that they didn't want to accept any request and I would later get paired with the worst roommates in all of recorded history. 

On the way to this open party, I was thrown into being introduced to this random person (Charlie) and neither of us wanted to go to this party. We started to walk a little slower and let the rest of them go to the party. We eventually met back up with Brandon and went back to their room. This was welcome weekend and little did I know, the semester to follow would be a very interesting one. 

This was "The move-in Process". 

Cleveland: The Final Frontier

Hello again friends, followers, casual blog enthusiast, etc.,

Even though I am currently being berated about my decision to write a blog in the first place (they're jealous I have a ton of time on my hands while they work towards getting into medical fields), I have decided to brighten all of your days by writing an extra post for the day. You can thank me later. I realize this is only my second post, but if you made it this far, I commend you. Studies show 80% of blogs fail after the first post. In addition, 100% of statistics I will use in the blog are completely made up on the spot. I sincerely hope that most of you who have read the first post "The move-in process", I thoroughly hope you enjoyed it and found something that you could related to.

I'd like to start out this second post by reminding you all that I have had some rough friendships in the past. While I still talk to my friends back home, and wouldn't want to lose them no matter how much they may piss me off, they weren't the best. Whether I contributed to that fact or not remains to be seen, but bottom line, my summer of senior year was rough. It consisted of long work days at the park, and many confusing nights playing Xbox in my basement by myself. Looking back on it, I wouldn't change how it went because it got me that much more excited to go to college. So while everyone was going through the graduation circuit, crying like they'll never see the people again, I was counting down the days.

Something funny happens when you hang out with the same people every day for nine years and your friend group rapidly expands. Sometimes, you get left in the dust, having to fend for yourself in the world of takeout Coney. For those of you reading this and know what that is, you probably feel for me right now. As you should. It's terrible. Sometimes unintentionally, your friends leave you out of things because they assume that you would not want to go. Other times, they will ask you to go so you can be the DD. Either way, being left out isn't fun, and it's a feeling I had become accustomed to.

Now that I'm off my soapbox, I can move on.

One day after getting in a fight on the phone with my mom, I decided I did not want to go home for Thanksgiving. Brandon, thinking I was being serious, told his mom and my invitation to celebrate Thanksgiving at their house came in the form of a hand written later a few days later. At this point, I felt like I couldn't say no. A couple weeks before going there for Thanksgiving we decided to go so I could meet his family and figure out what I wanted to see on the table during dinner. I am really not picky, so I just said a couple common things I knew they'd have and went on with the mini trip anyways. This is when I met some of the greatest group of new friends I could have.

I had never been to Cleveland before, but from what I heard, it wasn't great. Although, what else was I going to hear form a big group of people who had literally never lived anywhere else other than the little bubble that is the Metro Detroit area. Knowing this, I came in with an open mind. What I found out, was that I may have belonged in Cleveland the whole time. Everything about the city (or the parts I have seen up to this day) I love. The area is so much more diverse, certain things carry much more weight than they did at home. Also Sheetz, can't forget about Sheetz. If you don't know what it is, look it up and again, thank me later.

Even little things like the interest in basketball at all levels appealed to me. It felt like this was the place I was meant to grow up in. It was very interesting to see just how some people were much nicer. I told me new friends about some of the things that had gone on in my hometown over the previous year, not only with myself, but as the city as a whole. They stood and listened with amazement as I told tales of ex girlfriends and friends alike. I felt like an old man rambling on about my past to my ever interested grandchildren. The genuine interest they took in my life after knowing me all of a day was comforting. I thought back to what would've happened if I did the same thing back home. I can tell you one thing, it wouldn't have been the same thing.

Through a complete mistake of showing up at subway and forgetting my money and why I even went there in the first place, I had met my best friend, and their group of friends. Those friends I also have the pleasure of calling my friends as well. I have gone to Cleveland many more times since that first time. I go out with just people I met not more than a few months ago. For some reason to me that is still incredibly shocking. Thinking back that at that time, four months ago, I didn't even know these people existed, and now they're people I couldn't live without.

There is one person I have yet to meet in person. Doodle. No, that is not his real name. His real name is Michael, but even I don't ever call him that. Doodle is an interesting fellow. The only reason we met is because I heard someone talking about cartoons to Charlie over PS4. Anyone who knows me well enough, knows I still watch cartoons avidly. This is not the most common thing to do among 19 year old college students, but regardless of your opinions on it, its what I do. With this being the case, I was surprised that someone else actually made a reference to one of my favorite cartoons, Clarence. You know what they say (they meaning pretty much me and Doodle), they best friendships are the ones that start over cartoons. I will surly actually meet him the next time I go down to Cleveland.

For now, I am going to grind out the rest of this school year and start my internship for the summer, waiting for my next opportunity to visit "Cleveland: The Final Frontier."