Last Sunday was a little bit of a surreal experience for me. I had Laura's little sister, Suzie Schornack, staying with me for the week. She is going to be a freshman at UC Berkeley in the fall (i.e., next week), and managed to arrive in town a wee-bit early -- like over a week before the dorms opened. So, she spent a week of that time at my place, just chillin' (and occasionally illiin'). And then on Sunday, I drove her up to Berkeley, helped her get her stuff out of storage (which thankfully, was far less stuff than what I took when I first moved to college), and then got her all moved into her dorm room in Ida Sproull.

The last time that I had lived in a dorm was about 5 years ago exactly (I spent the summer of '99 in Storrs, so that is why it is just about exact), and after seeing Suzie's living situation -- man -- I don't think you could pay me to go back to that life. She has a triple room, no not triple size, 3 person (her plus two roommates). Not only that, the size of the room is about the size of a CWRU double. Amazing. There are three beds (two bunks, one loft), 3 desks (2 shoved under the loft, one free-standing), small bookshelves, drawers, and closets. There is really no way to re-arrange the furniture -- there is exactly one way that it can all fit in there, and UCB Housing has figured out that way. One of Suzie's roommates was planning on bringing a mini-fridge, but nixed that idea upon seeing the room -- there really is no space for it. The only way to live there is to be young, I think, which I am no longer.

Suzie seemed to be remarkably unstressed out by the whole process. Admitedly, she had been to the campus a number of times since coming out for her orientation in July, and I will give UCB props for making the move-in process as painless as they could, given the circumstances of their environment. The UC had plenty of helpful people wearing "move-in day '04" shirts, so there were many targets for my questions. They also bequeathed a free parking permit, and cleared out some lots for move-in only parking. The only annoying part was the loading/unloading zone -- but the real problem is that Berkeley is located in a city type environment, so they really don't have that much space to facilitate the parents trundling up with their mini-vans and SUVs full of stuff.

Which gets the another thing that was surreal for me -- I was basically Suzies's designated "father for the day" (or at least, that is what it felt like to me). I think that parents have a certain role to play on move-in day, and I kindof got to play that role well ahead of the game (for me). Suzie was probably one of the easiest kids that you could wish for, move-in wise. But still, it was stressful, and after it was over, I had a goodly sweat going on. I don't know how really old people do it.

Which leads me to the last way in which things were surreal -- I was exposed to college students again. And not just any sort of student, but freshmen. And not just any sort of freshmen -- 18-year-old freshmen! I mean, I'm 10 years older than these people! I marveled out the random girl talking about an Incubus concert, the slackers already busting out with the pirated DVDs on the HP Media Center laptop, the jock-types going around to meet all of the new, naive, freshmen women (shudder), etc. And I was just left with the since of how this whole phase of my life is over, and it is so not a bad thing. I have done my time in the college gulags, and now I am out of there, a much better man for the experience, to be sure, but out of there just the same.

Suzie and I capped off this wonderful memory-lane-type experience (for me) by having dinner at none-other than... (wait for it...) -- the dorm cafeteria! Yes kids, I had dorm food on Sunday night! As Suzie's designated parental unit, I was treated to a free meal at the caf for my hard work, and as a thank-you for all of the bucks that I am (not) going to send down into the UCB sinkhole. The food was pretty decent (for college cafeteria food), but I'm sure they were putting on "the show" for the visiting parents. I'll have to ask Suzie in about a month what she thinks of the food.

So, in conclusion, college is great, and Suzie is going to have a wonderful time at UC Berkeley. But for me, college was great, and while it's interesting to see how much I have changed in 10 years, I'm glad that I have grown as an individual, and moved on with myself.

At least, until my midlife crisis, anyway. :)

-Andy.