To Earlham and Back Again

After spending countless hours curled up in the corner crying, I have heroically recovered from my Wellesley rejection after only a couple weeks.  *Fanfare*

Anyway, moving on from the second worst moment of my entire life...

Last week I went on a trip all by myself!!!  It was super exciting, especially when you consider that I rarely leave my house yet traveled halfway across the country last week : )

Earlham, one of my safety colleges, had graciously offered to fly my out to Indiana to visit them.  Sure, Indiana certainly isn't on my list of Top Places to Visit Before I Die, but still...all expenses paid vacation!  Also, if worst came to worst and I had to go to my safety school, I at least wanted to see what it was like.

 

The Flight
I pulled an all-nighter the night before leaving (I was going to have to get up at 3:00AM, and considering that I don't even go to bed until then it seemed pointless to sleep.)  And then...my flight was canceled -_-"  And guess what?  Just to purposely inconvenience everyone, they don't even tell until 2AM.  Seriously, who does that?  And on top of my original flight being severely delayed, now I was going to have a 4 hour layover in Dallas.

When I finally get on the plane I'm so excited that I couldn't sleep anyway.  So there I am, hanging out waiting for my plane to land, when suddenly the guy next to me sees the first letters on Earlham envelope.  "Excuse me, are you going to Earlham college?" he asks.  It turned out that he applied there, to!  Seriously, what are the chances?

Anyway, he was really helpful.  He helped me mark terminals on the map we were given of the Dallas International Airport.  And once we landed, he helped me find the Skylink train before leaving.  He was a super big help.  (If you're reading this, thanks!)

Once I landed in the Dallas International Airport, I was pretty overwhelmed by everything.  I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I have social anxiety.  Because of that I don't even like leaving my house that often.  Suddenly I'm thrown in a huge, spreading area that's bigger than the mall.  There's hundreds of people, loads of noise, maps everywhere so you don't get lost.  There's a pathway that seems to stretch on forever, while simultaneously having dozens of other endless paths branching off.  I was very overwhelmed, to say the least.  But pleasantly so; because the area was so large, no one was crowding me, when did wonders for my anxiety.

Then I go on a huge escalator that is 2-3 times the height of the Citadel mall's escalator.  Having a fear of heights, I normally wouldn't go on something like that even if I was being paid.  However, it was necessary in order to get to my next flight.

So I go up this escalator and go on this thing called the Skylink.  It was amazing!  It was like a train on a giant elevated rail.  I spent about 5 minutes on this thing waiting for my stop, and this train was going fast.  It was about then that I was realizing just how big this place was.

When I finally get off the Skylink, I have to go back down the escalator.  Going up isn't as difficult as going down; it took me about 10 minutes to summon up the courage to get on, lol.

After I get off the escalator, I follow the signs and my map, make a couple of turns, and end up in this place with airline terminals on the right and dozens of shops on the left!

And then I think to myself, "This is just like being in WoW!"  I am suddenly reminded of my first trip to the Undercity, lol.

I spent the four hour layover wandering around the place (I was in Terminal D).  Half the people I passed were Asian.  Almost everyone either had an accent or was speaking other languages.  They even repeated the same message over the radio in at least three other languages.  It was AMAZING!!!

There were also tons of shops.  I bought my first latte!  I had it with soy milk since I'm lactose intolerant.  I know, I know, I'm always saying how much I hate coffee.  But I needed something to keep me up, right?  It actually wasn't that bad, once I added a few dozen packets of sugar : )

 

Arriving at Earlham College
Around 5-6 PM I FINALLY arrive at my destination: Dayton, OH.  And let me tell you, there is nothing in Dayton.  Seriously, the college was right on the border of Indiana and about an hour from the airport.  On the way there we passed 6 houses at the most.

We also passed a very small town that was pretty much a ghost town.  Let's just say I was expecting a bit more out of Richmond...

Anyway, by the time we finally arrive at the college, I am completely burnt out.  I've spent 12 hours either in a plane or waiting for a plane.  I haven't eaten in 4-6 hours.  I've eaten nothing but half a peanut butter sandwich, half a handful of almonds, and cherry Poptarts all day.  Not to mention that I didn't sleep at all the previous night.

After telling us all about the college, our chauffeur asks us what our first impression is when we finally arrive at Earlham.
The guy from LA who is also visiting: "It's pretty cool.  Yeah, it feels very homey to me, too."
Me (what I said): "It's nice."
Me (what I'm thinking): "Food.  Sleep.  Food.  OH MY GAWD I AM SO HUNGRY I COULD EAT THE CHAUFFEUR!!!!!!!!"

We're dropped off at the admissions office (which was a little quaint house), where we wait for our hosts to arrive.  My host was currently teaching a horseback riding lesson in the barn, so her best friend picked me up.  Not surprisingly the first words out of my mouth were, "Hi.  Can I eat dinner now?"

In my defense, I'm normally not so rude.  But manners hold nothing in the face of an overtired, ravenously hungry person.

The rest of the night was basically a blur.  I ate dinner with a girl from China and another girl that was a Japanese Studies major.  Then I ate dinner again with my host after her lesson was over.  I met tons of international students at dinner.  After that I believe she took me to her tribal dancing class, which was pretty cool.  I played Pokemon a bit.  I fell asleep.

Earlham College: The Next Day
When I wake up, I'm feeling much better.  It's 6AM.  After resting, I'm now feeling the excitement!  I try to sneak out without waking my host, Jessica, up.  She was studying late.  Unfortunately I wake her up anyway, but then we get to go to breakfast together.  I drink some tea, eat Reese's Puffs, go to my tour, go to my scheduled classes, go to lunch, and go back to my host's dorm.  FINALLY I get 30 minutes of free time.  I finally get in touch with my parents (I couldn't get a signal, so a girl lent me her phone).  There goes my 30 minutes.  Then I rush out in the rain to get to my check-in with admissions, where they asked me things like how I liked my classes.  And then I leave.

In the car I was mentally freaking out; there was a tornado warning on the radio.  We get the little "beep" radio warning in Colorado all the time, but they're always tests!  Imagine my surprise when we get an ACTUAL WARNING.  Thankfully we didn't bump into any tornadoes on the way there.  But when I was in the airport, I was watching the TV while I was on the phone with my mom.  Suddenly I am seeing these HUGE TORNADOES that are going down the SAME STREET that I was driving down on the way to the airport.  Talk about scary!

You have no idea how glad I was to get home in one piece.  The next day I heard that people had died in the tornado.  That really scared me, because that could have been me...

 

Overall Impressions
The college: Waaay better than I thought it would be!  Seriously, the pictures on their websites suck.  When I saw pictures of the dorms, they didn't even show any windows.  My first impression upon seeing those pictures were, "Oh my God...it's a prison."  Imagine my surprise when I get there and, not only do the dorms have huge windows taller than me, but the dorms are also bigger than my room!  And that was just the single!  I also loved that 18% of the student body were international students.

My day at the college: Great.  The profs were cool and insisted people call them by their first names.  The classes were very interactive and entirely discussion based.  I only wish I had more free time; it would have been fun to do some exploring on my own instead of rushing around all day.

The bathrooms (and yes, this is a very big deal to me!): There were...unisex bathrooms (da da DUM).  And even the bathrooms that WEREN'T unisex, it was like they were.  People had a complete disregard for *ahem* bathroom boundaries, if you know what I mean.  If you don't, I mean that men would go in the women's bathroom and women would go in the men's bathroom like it was no big deal.  This bothered me a lot, to say the least.  Thankfully there weren't any guys while I was in the bathroom.  Seriously, though, there's no way I could pee with a guy standing right next to me...

Indiana: Wow...there's not much to be said.  You know that song about Canada?  How they don't have many famous people or landmarks, but they do have trees and rocks and water?  That's how I was feeling about Indiana:
We've got fields and corn,
and corn and fields,
and fields and corn,
and corn and fields,
and...TORNADOES!
They do have some pretty beautiful sunsets, though.  They get this rainbow gradient thing, and the sun turns bright red when it sets.  Shoot, I should have taken a picture...

Conclusion: Earlham really skyrocketed on my list because of that visit.  Seriously, it's awesome!  Sure, the scenery sucks, you need a car in order to do anything, and all the bathrooms are pretty much co-ed.  But besides for that it was pretty cool.  I really enjoyed going there : )

Hopefully I'll be getting the rest of my college acceptances within a couple weeks (Earlham already accepted me).  Almost all the colleges I applied to were in MA, so my mom and I are going to go out and visit during spring break (first week of April).

Next time I'll remember to take pictures!