Orientation Blues

Well, the orientation visit to my sons university went well. For the most part.

He will be attending Northwestern State University of Louisiana in Natchitoches, LA (Natchitoches is pronounced Nack a dish or Nack a tish). NSU is a great small university (houses the Scholars College of Louisiana and has a very strong math & science department) and I love the town of Natchitoches too. The movie Steel Magnolias was filmed in this town.

We arrived Friday early enough to have a very nice dinner at The Landing and then made a trip out to the local WalMart to buy some things we had neglected to bring with us.

I had a hard time going to sleep Friday night.. finally dropped off about 1am and woke up at 4:24 AM.. and couldn't go back to sleep. Argh.

Got to the school in time to get a great parking place, got registered, turned in his Selective Service ( I kept wanting to call it Secret Service..lol) and vaccination info. Found that the Transcript that the HS gave us wasn't official (envelope wasn't sealed). I had questioned the person in the HS office about that, but they assured me it was fine. Sheesh.... That will teach me to deal with someone less than the secretary. But not a huge deal, they let him go on and register.

We then got to wander around and visit with other students and parents for 90 minutes until they were ready for us to go into an auditorium. There was a nice presentation, really cute routines and then they took the students off in groups to talk to them about the university.

Parents got to stay there and listen to other talk and we got to ask lots of questions.

Then they sent us all to lunch at the main dining hall. The leader of the orientation said it was only about a 1/2 mile away, but did advise us to drive because of the rain forcast.

Guess what? I didn't want to lose my great parking space so I walked. BAD decision. I didn't even get my unbrella out of the van. another BAD decision.

I saw my son at lunch.. he was doing the "if I ignore her, maybe she won't see me and come talk to me routine". Too funny. I sat a few tables away and alone.. and his new friends guilted him into coming to talk to me.

After lunch, I started walking back to the auditorium (by the way.. NEVER believe a skinny person when they say a walk is only 1/2 mile.. that was at least a mile walk if not further) and the bottom fell out of the sky. I walked halfway back and all kinds of cars passed me by.... I didn't expect any help as I didn't know anyone there, but it was discouraging. I got about 1/2 way back and was as wet as if I had stepped out of the shower when a car with NSU emblem on it stopped and gave me a ride. It was almost useless at that point, but I took it anyway.

I spent the rest of the afternoon freezing in the auditorium. I did try to go to the ladies room and dry off with some paper towels, but they were out of towels. No one had thought to make coffee for us freezing people either.

One lady came in the restroom and stripped down to her underwear and wrung her stuff out before she put it back on. I didn't bother.. no use.

They never told us where to find out kids again. I was so frustrated with the university by this point that I would've left if I had been able to find my son. I looked at the schedule for the kids and went to the building they were supposed to end up at. I was so tired.. and there was NO ELEVATOR from the ground floor to the 1st floor. arrrrggghhh.. I thought the Disabilities Act made elevators required?? so I climbed stairs, exhausted. Still couldn't find kid. Sat and waited and called hubby and griped and waited and son FINALLY showed up.. he dumped all his papers on me.. and he went to get his ID made.

We were finally finished at 4:30pm. Starving. Decided I was too wiped out to drive 2 hours back to camp (where son is working) then another hour home. Besides, road to camp is red clay road and with the downpour of rain.. that road scares me. Tried to get room at HI.. all they had was smoking.. so went back to Hampton. Sweet talked girl at Front desk into AARP rate even though I couldn't find my card. Went to dinner.. slept.

When I drove son back to camp yesterday, I was right about the red clay road. It was almost washed out at one point.. to where there were two water filled holes at the bottom of a hill.. and the holes were catty-corned to each other and couldn't avoid either of them (right hand side of the road had a sheer drop off and the left side, trees were down). I could fell my van sliding as I went through them at 5mph.

On top of all this, I have had bad menstrual bleeding since Tuesday.. and it's not getting better.. (yes I am seeing a doc about this). Just difficult dealing with HAVING to visit a bathroom at least every 2 hours if not more often. And pain.

I am tired and I think I am going to go order myself some cotton from elmore-pisgah as a reward for all this.

Son is signed up for 18 hours (including 5 hours of band) and wants to join a band fraternity. We still have lots of things to do, like setting him up a local bank account in that town, buying his meal plan, reserving books, finding SOMEWHERE to get a menningitis vac.(I've been battling with our doc's office for at least a month over getting one... this is a whole another blog post..later).. but at least he's now an official student.

I don't know whether to be happy for him or sad for me. A little of both I suppose.