- Legalization of marijuana, Tent City, the guy in the green spandex suit with the green balloons.
- Seeing Michael Jordan
- UCF trying to break a world record by giving the most flu shots in one day.
Anxiety, enthusiasm, and awe surrounded me the first day of college. All I could do was walk around with a big smile on my face trying to absorb every detail and fleck of craziness that engulfed campus. It was an extremely hot day with the sun beating on my shoulders slowly rewarding me with a nice bronze color. Walking through the Student Union was the most hectic aspect of the afternoon. I had seldom been surrounded by so many people in my life. My ears tingled with the buzz of meaningless chatter, music, and club leaders shouting the main ideas of their select group. Yelling the benefits of marijuana and crusading to try to make pot legal made me laugh out loud--not because I was completely against the cause, but instead because where I’m from no one would dare fight for a cause so radical. Most people sauntering through the area expressed no interest in the cause, others nodded their heads in agreement, and more conservative students shook their heads in disagreement to the outlandish statements.
I never felt like I belonged in my hometown of Jackson, Missouri, a small town near the boot heal along the murky Mississippi River. Jackson is a guarded, simple town with certain, basic expectations. The entire town would gather and squeeze into the high school football stadium every Friday night home game and before school started the inhabitants would participate in a small carnival-like celebration called Homecomers; if one didn’t attend either event, it was severely looked down upon. Jackson was also around 95% republican and if one happened to be part of the %5 that signed onto the ballot as a democrat would never admit it--proclaiming such information as having favor with a democratic candidate is grounds for flogging and a public stoning. Nothing radical ever occurred in Jackson. The high school graduating class of 2008 decided to camp out on the football field as a sort of prank and the school had the police arrive and escort everyone away. The hamlet in general was simple.
Arriving onto campus shook my entire world and dropped it upside down--I loved it. I loved the freedom of ideas and being able to participate in crazy activities like Tent City. I am Alice and UCF my Wonderland.
I trudged from parking garage to classroom building one on a slow Monday morning dreading that I was going to math instead of sleeping. About halfway to my destination, I lifted my head and observed about 10-15 tents set up on one of the grassy plains in Memory Mall. Seeing this odd display reminded me of the seniors getting escorted from the football field and I figured it was only a matter of time before this group of rambunctious students were told to vacate the area. To my surprise, the next morning the cluster of tents were sitting on the dewy grass. While other students merely walked past unimpressed, I was drinking the experience in wishing I were a participant in Tent City. Alice was loving Wonderland more than she anticipated she would.
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