I'm a real RA now!

My kids are here! I was considerably less excited about this fact when I was woken up by my phone ringing at 8:00 am this morning to tell me my first kid was here and I had to come get her. Our staff meeting wasn't until 9:00 and the kids weren't supposed to start arriving until 10:00, so I was looking forward to sleeping in a little for once...oh well.

After the staff meeting, I (and all the other RAs) spent 5 hours unloading cars and carrying luggage up to rooms in weather that alternated between short intense periods of really heavy rain and longer periods of really gross and humid heat. Woohoo! There was a pretty wide spectrum of families, some kids showed up by themselves from the airport with a backpack and a duffel bag, and others arrived with two generations of relatives and an SUV-full of bottled water, garment bags, instruments, sports equipment, and suitcases. The hardest part was the fact that about three-quarters of the families that came were non-native English speakers, and it was pretty difficult at times to give them directions and explain the check-in procedures. But there were no major disasters, unless you count all the times parents didn't believe I was an RA...

During my lunch break I went to check my mail box and found a little note addressed to me. At first I was really excited, but then I opened it up and read that they were adding an eleventh girl to my hall! Apparently they mistakenly had her down as a commuter when she was supposed to be living here, and I was the only RA with empty rooms on my hall. This doesn't sound like much of a tragedy, but I totally panicked. For one thing, I didn't have a door dec with her name on it for her. For another, her room is around the corner and down the hall from the rest of my girls, in a section of the hall I didn't even decorate at all. She's also the only girl without a roommate, and the only one not in the same classes as my other girls (she's in Mathematical Reasoning). So I was really worried about the fact that she and her family would go up to the hall and find that she had a blank door in a blank hallway, and think I'm a terrible RA. I did manage to decorate her door really quickly during my lunch, but she's still far away from everyone else and in an empty hallway. I'll try to decorate her walls tonight, and hopefully her being in a single and in a different class won't be too isolating...

Registration ended at 3:00, at which point parents are supposed to say goodbye and the RAs and students meet each other for the first time. I was really flustered from the new girl and all the luggage moving when I got to the hall, and then even more so when it seemed like none of my girls were in their rooms, but then I got to the last room in the hallway (besides the new girl's, that is) to find all my girls were in there sitting in a circle and talking like they'd known each other forever! I was so relieved, they were all participating in the conversation and getting along (even the new one!) and so happy! It looks like my fears about an annoying one or a clique were unfounded. After introductions and a few icebreakers, we played a rousing two hour game of Apples to Apples (which made me feel sort of old, since none of the girls knew who most of the famous people were). My favorite part was when in the middle of the game one of the girls raised her hand and asked if she could go to the bathroom, there was a moment of silence, and then everyone (including her) burst out laughing.

After bonding over board games we went to dinner together in the JHU "Auxiliary Dining Facility" (aka "gym") since the regular dining hall is being renovated. From there we went to the CTY opening ceremony, which was a lot of fun. All the RAs stood in the back of the auditorium, then the SRAs called us down one by one Price is Right style to run (or dance, in my case) down the aisle and introduce ourselves to all the kids (360 of them!). We then performed our wonderful skits about thrilling topics like "Lights Out at 10:30" and "Stay Within the CTY Boundaries." When I walked out onto the stage to start off our skit all my girls started cheering and clapping for me, and I was so touched it took me a second to remember I was supposed to be talking about lanyards. All in all, it was a very fun time. Unfortunately, as we were leaving the auditorium the skies opened up and it started raining the hardest it had all day. By the time we got back to our dorm everyone was totally soaked and muddy. And just as we were opening the door to go inside it stopped raining as suddenly as it started, just to spite us. Sigh.

At 9:00 pm we had our first official hall meeting. When I went to round all the girls up, they were already all in one room in their pajamas reading magazines and gossiping. The first thing they said when I came in the room was "can we have sleepovers??" I'm so happy they're all getting along so well! Too bad I had to spend most of the meeting going over all the boring administrative stuff instead of having girl talk with them...Hopefully all the future meetings will be more hanging out and less listing off rules and schedules.

I decided that I'm going to make up a "Lights Out Song" to run down the hallway singing every night at 10:30 instead of just knocking on everyone's doors and telling them to go to bed. I also want to make up some sort of signal for when it's time for hall meetings, too bad I didn't bring my trombone...Any ideas for either the song or an instrument/noisemaker I can make out of really basic art supplies?