Cory's Blog

Saturday was a day of trips for me. It was a trip down memory lane. It was also several trips up and down the vertical staircase of the Capstone Residence Hall. You see, as a member of my honor society, we help with the chaos that is “Move In Day,” or the day that everyone moves into their residence hall. The thing is, I have helped out with move in day now for three years and have been a part of move in day for four! (Considering my freshman year experience when I was on the other end of move in day and was the one being helped move in). In any case, I couldn’t believe that I was helping move in for the third year in a row!

I will get back to my drive in memory lane (which also happens to be the carpool lane, because who wants to sit in traffic when they are flying down memory lane?) in a bit, but I need to get to my trips up and down those stairs, as well as my awesome analogy. You see, getting people moved in is a lot like trying to win a baseball game. There is a saying that goes, “Get em’ on, get em’ over, and get em’ in.” This means that you want to get a person on base, advance them, and get them home to score. Things work a little like that while moving in, only its “Move em’ on, move em’ over, and move em’ in.” First we want to move students on campus by having them find the place where they need to be moving in. Then we want to move them over and signed in to receive their key. Finally, our goal is to get them and all of their belongings moved in.

Saturday worked out as well as could have been expected. The weather was not too hot, the spirits of everyone moving in was good, and everyone was very willing to help out. Personally, I was excited to get going on my third year as a member of the move in crew. I definitely put in some quality time in the fours hours we were allotted to help move in. I think I was sweating through my shirt within the first 10 minutes of schlepping personal items up what seemed like never ending stairs in Capstone. Along the way I met several very eager students, and what seemed like even more eager parents who I weren’t sure were more eager to get their students moved in, or to just be done with the stress of moving in!

Now it’s time to change lanes back to “memory.” By the end of my shift, things were slowing down a bit, and I was just about ready to leave when I got another blast from the past. I was looking at the folks moving in when I saw my roommate from freshman year! He was there with his family helping to move in a new generation, as his little brother is an incoming freshman. I made sure to help them move in (although the fact that he lived on the second floor certainly made my decision easier!). Helping them allowed me to get a little reminder of what I went through four summers with the same family. In the end it was a day of several trips, be it up the stairs or coasting down memory lane! Take care!

Posted by Cory at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aaaaaalllll right there sportsfans, I know you have all been pining for a tasty slice of my blog, but I have not been in the kitchen, or when in the kitchen, have not been in the mood to cook. Convoluted analogy aside, I have been quite busy and as such have not had a ton of time to devote to my bloggings and such. However, I am back (sort of a hint as to the particular flavor of this blog) and rarin’ to get back in the “kitchen”.

Ironically, this blog has nothing to do with cooking, kitchens, or food whatsoever (despite my overuse of the theme in the first paragraph). In fact, I am here to talking about moving back in. For the last three years I have been moving in to campus housing to live for the year. However, this is my first year making “the move” off campus. I have had some fantastic times living on campus, and I HIGHLY recommend it. Especially you freshman, y’all are in for a treat living on campus your first year but for me it was the year to finally make the move off campus.

Anyways, I said I was moving off campus, and technically I am not in “on campus housing” but I am geographically practically “on campus” as I moved into the apartments known as The Wilshire House. It is located right behind California Dreaming and the other end of the Assembly Street walking bridge to the Strom. If you are having trouble picturing where it is, you’ll get the hang of it after you get here for a few days, trust me.

I started this “Great Move” back on Monday with the big help of Mom and Dad who came out for the move in, along with my roommate Ryan and our friend Chad. All it took was a moving truck, some eager sets of bodies willing to move, and about five trips up the elevator to get all of stuff moved in. I say moved in, but it was more along the lines of getting everything within the walls of the apartment. Once that was done, Ryan headed back to his home in Greenville and the real fun began as the unpacking and “putting away of everything” commenced.

In actuality, it was a lot of fun deciding how I wanted to organize my room, and putting together my furniture (another story altogether!) and when I took my parents to the airport on Tuesday, there was still a lot to be done. Even as I sit here and type this for you, there remains a few things yet to get done around our place, but I am pleased with how it is all coming along and I promise some pictures once we get it all finished, hopefully some time before school starts! Glad to be back in “the kitchen” and I look forward to much more. Take care!

Posted by Cory at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

            My feet ache, my arms are in a jello-like state, and my shirt is stained with sweat. It must be that time of the year here at Carolina: that’s right; I am talking about move in day!

            Yesterday and today the majority of the students living on campus went through the process (for the freshman it was more like a “right of passage”) of moving in what seemed like all of their worldly goods into their residence halls. I still remember moving in two years ago with my parents and aunt and uncle. We stuffed my poor little Pontiac Sunfire and my Uncle’s midsize sedan to the brims, unloaded my “goods” on the sidewalk in front of Maxcy, dragged them upstairs and unpacked it all in under two hours. Good times and much sweat were had indeed.

            Fast forward two years and yesterday it was me, my good ol’ Sunfire, and my friend Chris (Biology 09’) with his Honda CRV. I packed the majority of all of my belongings into the Sunfire, and Chris just took a couple bulky boxes and my TV. We arrived at Desassure (my place of residence), and we unloaded his car, and he was off. It was up to me to fend for myself and get the all of the vacuum sealed clothes, microwave, and assorted other goodies out of my own car.  About 5 leg burning trips up the two flights of stairs later, I was all moved in, and by all moved in, all of my stuff was inside our horseshoe apartment. I still had to unpack everything, but there was to be time for that later because…

            About a half hour all of my “goodies” were inside, Nick 09’ came with his father and I helped them unload all of his belongings into our apartment. Let me tell you, when you are 6 feet 7 inches tall like Nick, clothes tend to weigh a lot more, which I found out firsthand!

            Well, once he was all moved in, it was time for a break right? Not so much, as Nick’s girlfriend Melisa and her roommate Kathryn needed help moving in their belongings into Woodrow. After much sweat and back straining to get them all in, it was time to relax in our new digs? Right? Come on!

            Nope! Morgan (Business 09’), my third roommate at Dessasure, had arrived, and so we had to schlep a large SUV load up the two flights of stairs. However, once Morgan had moved in, we were done! Quite literally and figuratively, as we had nothing more to move, and no more energy to move ourselves!

            Last night, after we had gotten everything inside as best we could, the whole crew took in a nice relaxing meal at Monterey’s, a Mexican food restaurant in the Vista where we shared stories of the summer, tales of the day, and a large bowl of queso.     

            It was satisfying to be moved into the apartment that I will call home for the next 9 months. I am very happy with our place here in Desassure, and hopefully I will have some pictures coming in the next few weeks once we get all our dishes put away, and our posters on the wall. Until then, take care!

Posted by Cory at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

            Let me to begin this one by apologizing for this long absence in my activity. As you can imagine, it has been quite the busy week for me. This past Monday and Tuesday were my two most difficult finals: anatomy and organic chemistry. So I have been pretty much g getting ready for those, but I also had to say adios to my friends who I won’t be seeing until August! Oh, and by the way, I have had to pack and clean up the Woodrow Apartment to be ready to leave. Add all of that up and you don’t get a lot of fun blogging time. So, I will have posted three to kind of catch you up from three different perspectives. Hopefully you have some time to read up on them and see what your buddy Cory has been up to!

            As the title alludes to, this post is about my last day of packing and getting ready to leave. A common problem, especially for out of state students, is what to do with all of that stuff you have accumulated over the year, because trust me, it wont fit in whatever you brought it in, be one car or two. The choice for many, including myself last year, was to use a storage facility to keep my stuff in. However, this year, Brad got a house, and he let me keep my possessions there for the summer.

            Since he let me keep my stuff there, I gradually packed items and sent them over to his place all last week. Unfortunately, only so much could be done until we were totally finished with our finals. So, as soon as we finished our Organic Final Tuesday, it was first off the Russell House for some celebratory Red Velvet cake, and then it was packing time!

            I spent about an hour packing all of the things I am leaving here in Columbia over the summer and we filled his and my car up to the brim, which really isn’t saying much about mine since I drive a tiny little Pontiac Sunfire. The worst part was toting all the boxes, bags, and oddly shaped items down three flights of stairs. Luckily, we were able to handle the task, and we took our little two car convoy over to his place.

            Unloading was definitely easier since Brad’s house is only one story, and we had the job done in no time! I was done with my packing up! A couple words of wisdom: First, check out these vacuum sealing bags that you can pick up from Bed Bath and Beyond, they save a ton of space by sucking all the extra air out of your clothes and sealing them safe until the fall. My other tip is just to start organizing early and doing a little every day. It makes life much easier than putting it all off until the end.

            We spent the rest of the day cleaning the joint up and just taking in our last night in Columbia with Nick, Melisa, Sarah, and Kathyrn with Arrested Development on DVD.

            That is all of my packing tales, but I have a couple more posts for y’all to check out too. Take care and happy reading!

Posted by Cory at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)