Getting There

Over the past two weeks I've been steadily gathering together my possessions, new and old, for the big move this Friday. As a result, I am sitting here at the dining room looking over a sea of household items. There is the haul from my tag sale blitzkrieg last Saturday. There are laundry baskets and rubbermaid containers filled with the items I shipped home from Switzerland a year and a half ago. There are flatpacks of Ikea furniture bought during a marathon 5-hour trip there this past Sunday. There is furniture, pots and pans, and small appliances given to me by family members and a stereo I saved from retirement in my dad's basement.

I hardly know what lies at the bottom of some of these containers, and I have no idea what it'll all look like in an apartment together, but at least, as of last Friday I officially have an apartment! Due to an enormous housing crunch in State College, I had to jump on the first place available. Why the housing crunch? Apparently Penn State's incoming freshman class is about 4,000 students larger than they expected it to be. Can you imagine that!? They accidentally enrolled an extra 4,000 students--more than two times the total number of students at my alma mater. Signing a lease on a place I haven't seen is a little scary, but I have the floor plans and I've seen photos, and numerous people have vouched for the quality of the apartment complex. It's very large and has a balcony, and a washer/dryer, and a dishwasher! It's three miles from campus by road, but there's a bike path that leads directly to campus, shortening the distance, and apparently if I ride or walk that to work I am likely to cross paths with legendary football coach Joe Paterno, who walks it every day.

Slowly but surely, the elements of my new life are falling into place. My cousins are lending me their pick-up truck (yee haw!) until I can find my own car, I have communicated with one of the professors in the Master's program I am considering, I'm having a bed delivered to my apartment the day I move in, and I'm looking into getting internet access set up to be ready when I get there. In just a few days I'll be heading out with a trailer full of stuff, in a move reminiscent of the one I made 12 years ago. Similar emotions of excitement and apprehension accompany me on this move, but after the worlds of experience and many changes and moves I've made over those 12 years, I know there is much less to be apprehensive about and much more reason for excitement in any new adventure, so I look forward to this one for all the surprises it has in store.