Making a living is hard

Hi Friends,

I must make this quick because I have a ton of work to do before orientation week starts so here goes!

I took the train up here and got put in a pretty crappy double in a suite with 4 other girls, but it's temporary so thank goodness! Between carrying my stuff up and down 4 flights of stairs and cleaning up some disgusting dorms, I think I'm getting buff (not really, but I like to hope I have some sort of reward for the soreness and tiredness).

Dorm Crew is fun, I'm meeting lots of people and getting paid a good amount for cleaning (vacuuming carpets for 8 hours is NOT my idea of fun, though damp dusting and sweeping weren't so bad), although food is ridiculously expensive and I'm starving all the time. I've already been overwhelmed with meeting a fraction of the kids doing Dorm Crew (about 300), and thinking about the other over 1000 freshmen my mind is blown. How will I ever remember anyone's names? But this week's been pretty cool because I basically got to hang out with different people at every meal and it was completely normal since we're all basically in the same boat. It is, however, also exhausting because not only do we do manual labor (I joke that we are the brawn of HC while the other pre-orientation programs are the brains) for eight hours a day, I also stay up until 2ish every day meeting and hanging out with new people. And I've developed an iced coffee addiction over the summer. HALP. I've also run into some awkward situations including finding a used condom under a bed I was cleaning, finding some cocaine, and having alcohol readily available to me.

I promised myself I would not drink, but I can't lie and say that I haven't been tempted. I've also been told that my college is extremely lenient about it, so the fear of consequences has also been diminished quite a bit. But, I have managed to stay away and I hope to continue to do so. I wish you all the best of luck at your various institutions as you undoubtedly will be facing similar situations. And please remember that I am your friend: there is no judgment and I am always here for you.

Tomorrow is the last day of Dorm Crew and the day in which I move into my actual dorm with my actual roommates, and I must say it is bittersweet. The work I've done in Dorm Crew is probably some of the hardest I've done in my life, but it was very rewarding in that I got to see some of the upperclassmen housing, I got to meet new people, and I get paid (although that kinda balances out if you take the cost of food into account).

Now I have to sign up for seminars (we have to write essays for each one we sign up for, and though they are start I am not in the mood to write essays in the last week of summer "break"), and read forty pages. Yay.

I hope you guys all had a good start/ will have a good start!
Keep me posted!
Love Always,
Juliet

PS: Check out my college Dorm Crew ALS Challenge on the Internets :) It was cold, but I felt like a celebrity because of all the tourists.