The University of Montevallo sits in the middle of a small town and stands out for its beauty, which is one of the multiple reasons I chose it to be my home away from home. Its brick roads and positive atmosphere really makes it something more than just another college. That is something that this school and I have in common; we both stand out. Only, I do not stand out for my breathtaking appearance, but because I am a lost freshman who had no idea where to go or what to do.

While a lot of college freshmen tend to look at the positive things that happened during their first week of classes, I cannot help but think about the awkward moments that I have had. Why? Well, mainly because I cannot stop thinking about them, but also because I think that it is in some way helping me grow from an awkward freshman into something more. Here are the three strange and awkward things that happened to me my first week of college:

Awkward Eye Contact

I am an absolute pro at making awkward eye contact, especially if it is with the same person on a daily basis. For the past week, I have made eye contact with the same person that I met during Freshmen Orientation Weekend. Just to clarify, I do think this person is cool. I admire his energy and school spirit and want to be that kind of person at Montevallo. However, I have seen him so much to the point where the amount of eye contact is unreal. And I do not even mean to look at him with the look of fear plastered on my face because he is an upperclassman. It just happens.

To top this off, I ended the week with giving my English professor the same exact look in the cafeteria. He did not appear to be amused by my fear, which leads me to believe that he probably thinks that I am frightened by his immense amount of intelligence and PhD.

Arriving to Class Too Early

Since I hate being even just a few minutes late to an important event, I spent all week going to my classes way too early. Even though it only takes me a few minutes to get from one building to another on campus, I still thought that I would be late. This lead me to sitting on a piece of furniture for about 30 minutes until my professor and my other classmates arrived. I even heard one girl in the cafeteria take note of me having my backpack on at 7 o'clock in the morning because I thought that I would be late. Of course, I could not argue, because she was right.

My Cursed Room In My Residence Hall

I am highly convinced that my room in my residence hall is haunted by some evil spirit. There have been a few incidents this week where something strange has happened in or near my room, which somewhat freaks my roommate and me out. One of these incidents happened to me nearly falling off my bed and into a portal to the underworld. Yes, you read that correctly. My mattress happens to be one that slides everywhere on the bed, and it does not help that my bed is right beside the air conditioning unit. So, one night during my first week of classes, I almost fell off of my bed into a dark portal (which was just the carpet in my room, but I was too sleepy to think that) and had to grab on to the air unit to keep me from falling. I am not sure how I did that, but I am going to go ahead and claim that an evil spirit did it. It just sounds cooler and makes me sound less klutzy.

So, I guess while everyone else who started college this week was having fun preparing for recruitment and not tripping on the brick roads (which is something I did a lot this week, as well), I was doing none of those things because I was busy being super awkward, super early, and super clumsy.

I would like to add this, though: choosing to attend the University of Montevallo is the best decision I have ever made. I feel at home, accepted, and loved. Despite these crazy occurrences, I am proud to say that I go to school here, and that my first memorable (and crazy) first week of college was spent here.