Wow, so I’ve been down here for a week now – I think! It’s been super crazy, interesting, and
completely new. I took my parents back
to the airport in Raleigh on Friday, and that was kind of hard. When I decided to move, I never thought I
would cry at all, but with each person I said goodbye to leading up to the
move, I couldn’t help but cry. My
parents and I didn’t get emotional until right when I dropped them off, and
then the waterworks started. It was kind
of surreal since I never left home for college or anything, and at the most
always lived ten minutes from their house.
It was hard letting go, because they were the last thing from “home” –
that familiarity that made me feel safe and protected. Everyone has been asking how things have been
going, so I’ll try to fill everyone in on some of my experiences thus far, but
can’t promise everything will be in perfect order as it’s all been a whirlwind!
So to start out, I moved into a tiny two bedroom, one
bathroom house with another girl who teaches at the school. She’s just a couple months younger than me
and seems very nice. She’s engaged, and
she is planning to be married by November, so with this come two things: 1) I’ll
be moving before the year is over. 2)
She’s usually spending time with him, leaving me all alone. This is fine, but it’s taking some time to
adjust to being “truly alone” as it feels.
I’ve made more phone calls to friends these past several days just to
have someone talk to.
I went to the school with my parents on Thursday and met
some people there. Everyone has been
super friendly and helpful – sharing with me any tidbits of information about
anything and everything they can think of.
The principal assured my parents that they would take care of me, and he
promised them that they would turn me into a southern girl. Going along with this, I’m finally getting used
to saying, “Yes ma’am,” “No ma’am,” “Yes sir,” and, “No sir.” I caught myself on the phone with my mom
tonight and I answered her with a good old, “yes ma’am,” so it must be working!
Saturday was a day of serious frustration. I started the day out by deciding that I
needed to do laundry, so I ran down to the dollar store and bought fabric
softener sheets, and what I originally thought was detergent. I got out to my car and realized I bought
fabric softener and had to run back in.
Since we don’t yet have a washing machine, I see the one laundry mat
in this town and go in. Flashback to the
past, this place was a dead end. I
figured what the heck, it doesn’t take too long to wash clothes, and so I sat
there and got it done. I brought my
clothes home to dry, and then realized the dryer wasn’t hooked up or something. I didn’t spend too much time with it as I was
annoyed. I hauled all my clothes back
out to my car, and drove the fifteen minutes into town to find a laundry
mat. I go in, look around, and I notice
none of the washers or dryers have a place to put quarters, so after staring
around confused for about a minute, I go ask an employee for help. Apparently, they use “debit keys now,” and I
still don’t fully understand, but nonetheless, I got my clothes dried. I drive back to my town because I also wanted
to wash my car. I see people at the
carwash, just going to town cleaning their vehicles. The one I
pull into though, come to find out, has next to no water pressure, and the
actual “soap” option doesn’t work. After
spending about seven dollars on that bogus excursion, I angrily drove fifteen
minutes again to go wash my car in the other town. Hallelujah – success!
Saturday night was interesting because my roommate and her fiancé
were out for most of the day, and I really felt as though I needed to get out
of the house. I decided that I would
grow up and go find somewhere to eat, by myself. As I psyched myself up for this, as it was
easy enough for me to do back “home,” but I find much more difficult here, and
got ready. I decided I would go to
Buffalo Wild Wings as that was somewhere I used to eat by myself a lot back in
the day. I drove by, passing it without
realizing it, GPS’ed where I was going, and after about a dozen of U-turns
later, I found it. Holy crap was that
place crowded. You literally had to walk
about half a mile to get into that place.
I thought that maybe I should look elsewhere so I drove down to this
other place I saw during the daytime that I was curious about (after several
more U-turns of course), and it was just as crowded, if not more. I have never seen restaurants so packed in my
entire life. Keep in mind, marines and
girls are milling about everywhere, and there doesn’t look like there would be
a place to stand, let alone sit down and eat.
After driving around for probably another thirty minutes, confused,
lost, terrified, starving, I thought, “Eff this! I wanted B-dubs, and that’s
where I’m freaking going!” I would later
come to realize that the football games were also playing, which was partially
to blame for the crowds. I finally find
a place to park and walk into Buffalo Wild Wings, head held high, purse slung
over my shoulder, and bee-lined toward the bar since that’s where “single
people” tend to eat - I also find it far less awkward. I ate my dinner and drank my beer like a
champ, and then I left and went home. I
won the battle that night as far as I was concerned.
Sunday I spent being pretty lazy for the most part, and
nothing really exciting happened from the couch I parked myself on once I got
the internet working. So this brings me
to today. I realized I needed to get
things together today and go run some errands.
I have a bank just a quarter of the mile down the street from me, and I
needed to go open a checking account. In
my past experience, this takes ten minutes tops, but ohh lawd no! I spent an hour there today, and it was like
a social hour. I met just about everyone
at the bank, a local man who said he’d pray for me when he found out what I was
teaching, and got all kinds of advice from the lady opening the checking
account for me. It was kind of nice
getting to talk to people from my little town, and feel like I was “getting to
know” people. After this I decided to go change my mailing
address, so I drove to the post office, and while I was in line, I saw a paper
that talked about doing it online, and this seemed like an easier option so I
grabbed it and walked out the door.
After going online to do this, I find out you have to be charged one
dollar via debit/credit card to “prove identity.” Obviously since I JUST opened a new checking
account, I don’t have one, so frustrated, I gave up on that until tomorrow. I then made my way to the DMV to find out
about how to get a NC driver’s license.
The lady basically tells me everything and then tells me to get in line
to take the test. I thought, “How hard
can this be? I’ve been driving for 8 years.” I opened up the rules of the
road book and skimmed through it with my best reading skills I’ve come to
learn. I giggle at the passage that
says, “Don’t be a jackrabbit.” This
seemed so crazy, backwoods, call it what you want, but just remember this when
I go to make a point here in a minute.
So I go in, take care of everything, get registered to vote, they change
my address, I take my vision test, and then they put me on a computer to take
the actual driving test. I FAILED!! Yes that’s right, I failed. Missing six or more was failing, and I of
course missed six. This is what I get
for not studying the “points” you get for providing alcohol to minors, and
other various offenses – things that are definitely different in Illinois. I kind of thought it was funny that I failed
after laughing smugly about the whole “jackrabbit rule.” Whatever.
After this I headed to the mall to pick up a few things that I needed,
one being an item from the Clinique counter.
I began talking to the sales associate there, and I told her how I used
to work for Clinique. Come to find out,
she too was from Illinois, and worked for the same department store that I
worked for, only several hours north. In
talking to her, I may have also lined myself up with a part-time job back at
the Clinique counter, so I was pretty excited about this. And this, my friends, takes me to where I’m
at now. Writing this. I’m sure I will have a lot more to say later,
but I figured writing this all out one time was a lot easier than telling my
stories over and over again. I’m sure before
too long, I’ll also be able to look back and laugh at the things that I’ve gone
through since I’ve gotten down here!
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