Getting ready

Our RAs are coming back in one week; one week after that the RHA Executive Board will move in, three days after that my Learning Community Leaders will be there and then just two days later is First-Year Move-in and the next day, everyone else will be able to move back in.

The summer went by way too fast - as always. It's tough to believe that students will be back so soon. And yes, I still stand by what I said - I can't wait for them to get back. That doesn't mean though that I'd love to have a couple more weeks to get everything ready. ;) I'm just not ready; there's too much to do and not enough time. How does that always happen? We know students come back on a certain day and we have all summer to get ready - but then the last couple weeks are stressful and crazy. I tried to be better about it this year and did some things early, but there are so many things that I couldn't do yet because I was waiting for things from other people. Waiting to get the RA Training schedule, so I could start thinking about In-Area Times and figure out how to squeeze in my Learning Community Leaders training. Waiting for others to review things, so I could finish them. Waiting for my students to send me information, so I can plan more things for them. Waiting for our new Faculty Director to get here, so I can finalize lesson plans for my first-year student class and figure out details for our Learning Community Leaders course/experience.

Sometimes, when I let myself think about all the things I need to do this Fall, I get totally freaked out. I definitely feel like I've taken on too much and when I tried to get rid of a few things, that didn't go over so well and I'm still stuck with almost everything. The problem is that I don't think anyone realizes how much I actually have on my plate. I tried to figure out the hours that I'll be spending in meetings and one-on-one's this summer and I ended up with about 33-34 hours a week; that's just not feasible. Where will I find time to get any work done? Or be visible in the building (since that's supposedly one of our focus areas)?

But I need to stop talking about this or I'm going to get stressed out again. I guess I'll just have to take it one day at a time.

Yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time painting our office. Three walls of the outer office are now done; we just need to do the accent wall and door frames, etc. That shouldn't take too long. Painting has been kinda frustrating though. First it took a while to get the paint; then I couldn't get help to move furniture in the office and take down the bulletin boards. The walls looks horrible - but getting those wholes and scratches fixed was just not in the cards...so we painted over them. :) It doesn't look great but it looks better than before. And now, I'm almost out of light blue paint but I still have three walls in my office to do. I've asked for more but didn't get a response. Big surprise! Maybe I'll just go out and buy paint on my own. I know I shouldn't have to and it's slightly ridiculous, but I think it may be worth spending a couple bucks to save me from the stress and frustration of trying to get paint. And I want this office to be done before the RAs get here next weekend.

Today, I relaxed for a bit (shocker!), then spent some time making door tags for my RAs. I always have those "great" ideas for door tags that turn into way too complicated projects. Haha. This year, I bought them dry-erase boards (that's kind of a tradition for me) and am using foam to cut out their favorite animals and names - and all that gets glued to the dry-erase board. I also have 8 door tags to make for my Learning Community Leaders, plus 16+ door tags for conference chairs (for the regional conference we're hosting). I definitely won't get bored in the next few days.

Now I'm back in the office and will clean before moving some of the furniture back and trying to put up those bulletin boards again.

Good Luck to all the other ResLife staff members out there, who are going through trainnig and are getting ready for their RAs to return!