Gosh, time really flies! It’s Thursday already and the ‘syllabus week’ of classes has already begun. Some of us though, are still trying to recover from move-in week.

Move in week is a (sort of) supervised version of “The Blue Lagoon.” Here you are, away on your own, living the dream of every adolescent; independence. The only thing that could make it better is a water slide, or maybe free beer nuts.

In every four-star teenage sex comedy there’s the inevitable “college party” scene, that makes you want to say,”Man, I can’t wait until I get to college!” Most high school guys have images of themselves in togas, drunkenly slurring ‘Louie Louie’ with Otis Day and the Knights. Thoughts of perky coeds and parties that resemble Sodom and Gommorrah dance through their heads.

When you get to NIU, however, the reality of jammed rooms and beer spilling on you sets in. I remember my first NIU party freshman year, waiting all night to get to the keg, listening to some guy babble about pro wrestling. My friends and I struck out more times than Ron Kittle, with one guy resorting to the line, “What’s your meal plan?” I’ve been to a lot of great parties since then, but that disaster still stands out.

Another fun memory is of the inevitable first floor meeting on Sunday night. I’m one of those people who has the mysterious affliction of always being picked first to give my name, where I’m from, and something interesting about myself. I’ve always wanted to say something witty and clever, something that would make Mark Twain jealous, but I usually ended up with something that wouldn’t even make Harpo Marx green with envy. “I, er, uhh, that is..” doesn’t exactly move mountains.

And then there’s always some wiseguy who heckles everyone, and then when you get to him, he says something like, “Hi, my name is Bud Wiser, and what’s interesting about me is that I rarely wear underwear.” The mating call of the wild idiot is answered by a few people in the room, and the rest usually feel like gagging, or bludgeoning him with a blunt object.

One of the other great pleasures of move-in week is decorating your room and seeing the way other people have decorated theirs. I hate to have one spot of white paint showing on the walls, so everything is covered by posters, pictures, and various whatnot. I could never understand how people could handle living in a room with bare white walls with maybe one or two things up.

It’s always a great experience getting to know everyone in the first week. Three years from now, you may be looking back upon it fondly, even the time when you locked yourself out of your room when you went to take a shower and had to wander around in a towel looking for an RA to let you in. I, uh, don’t know anyone who did that, err, it’s just an example.

The good thing is though, even if you do something that makes you seem like a total bonehead, don’t worry, someone’s probably done it before too. So, take it easy, have a good time, and ‘til next week, be casual.