Moving away from home for the first time

The month of July was busy and great at the same time. If you actually read this blog you probably have seen my last entry on getting married. Following the wedding we traveled to Costa Rica for our honeymoon and enjoyed every minute of our trip. I returned to work on July 12th and dove head first into planning for the fall semester. We have several fun and exciting activities planned for students which I hope to write about in my next blog entry.

Since future Kirkwood students begin moving into apartments near campus this week, I’ve decided to write about another flashback of my time as a student here at Kirkwood. It was August of 2001 when my roommate Shawn and I moved into the Kirkwood Court Apartments (now Campus View Apartments). Shawn and I had been friends since sometime during 6th or 7th grade and now we were going to be living away from home for the first time together. It was about a 2 hour drive from our hometown of Indianola (12 miles south of Des Moines) and we had it all planned out.

We left Indianola and drove next to each other on the 142 mile journey to Cedar Rapids. The first few days before classes were spent organizing our apartment, exploring Cedar Rapids for the first time, and meeting our new neighbors. We had it made; we were in a brand new apartment that had just been built and finished only a few days before we moved in. You walked from the parking lot directly into the living room where we had our nice hand-me-down couches and the 70’s style dining table we purchased at Goodwill. Best of all though was our 19” TV hooked up to our N64! (I know, we would get laughed at now if we had that set-up).

It is an experience that can really only be experienced once in life. The first night you spend away from home in your “own” place away from your parents. No curfew, no bedtime, just my best friend and I living in our new apartment. It was certainly an exciting experience for us and I can remember it like it was only yesterday.

Now here we are, 9 years later as I bounce around the same apartment complexes I used to call home and hand out bottled water. If you are moving in over the next week or two: Enjoy and cherish these first few weeks – you will only get to do it once in your life, and you will remember it for many years to come!