September 30, 2000
First week of school. First week of my postponed senior year. It feels absolutely great. I hope i'll be able to say that as things get more hectic.
These few days have served to remind me once again of the futility of worrying. Why am i so quick to forget? For almost a year i've been worried about how my senior year would go. All my friends would be gone, what classes would i take etc. But since i stepped foot on campus, Sat. to start moving back in, things have been going better than i could have imagined. My hallmates are very friendly in addition to being very helpful. I needed somewhere to stash my goods until the official move-in day- so they allowed me to borrow some floor space.
When i entered draw i was still living at home in LA. I had limited access to computers so it was a bit inconvinient to enter the housing draw. i asked two of my good friends at Stanford if i could draw with them. However they had both already formed drawgroups, and were planning to use their unpreferred year. I still had a preferred year and i really wanted to use it to live in Ujamaa. it seemed rather challenging to coordinate the whole thing from afar, because i wasn't really allowed to use the phone for "long distance" calls and no real computer. These factors caused me to decide to enter the draw by myself. I ended up with a really good number- 500 (out of 2000, i think)- so i turned in my list and got placed in Uj. Then i found out about in-house draw. To get a single room in Uj you have to write a theme proposal on how you plan to use your room to support the house theme. I found out about this on wednesday and it was due friday at midnight. this was finals week at the school i was attending, and remember limited access to a computer. So i bypassed the opportunity to obtain a single room(1 room, 1 person). Meanwhile i had a friend who was helping me with the process and she informed that i had been placed in a triple(2 rooms, 3 people). She tried very hard to console me about this seeming "tragedy" but i really didn't think it was all that bad. Once in awhile i would pray for my future roommates and pray that we would get along and i would be a good witness. But i didn't really worry about it. I had much, much bigger concerns at the time.
I dropped my stuff in Uj on Sat. morning. I noticed only one name on the door to my room. So i thought i had a double instead of a triple. But no worries. I dashed off to Berkeley,Novato, & Davis to make full use of my last day with wheels. I came back to Uj late Sunday night (midnight) and noticed that my hallmates had put my luggage in my room. I met Vanessa - whose name was on the door. And then we noticed this huge pile of stuff in the corner that didn't belong to either of us. We consulted an RA and she was very surprised because no third person was on her roster for our room. Then we speculated that someone had dumped theirs stuff in error. But i noticed the phone was plugged in and their was a bible on the shelf... Meanwhile i noticed that people kept walking down the halls with bowls of ice cream. I snagged Vanessa and we went to the lounge to get our own. While we were there, I saw Ekene. I was really excited to see her but she barely noticed me- she was too deep into our conversation. Finally she concluded that conversation, and i asked her where she was living this year, The last time we spoke she was still unassigned and was planning to walk on. Her response was something to the effect of "with you". So i pulled out a chair and sat down and continued to eat my ice cream as i contemplated this doozy of a fact.
Get this. She was who i wanted to draw with at first, but because of the preferred/unpreferred thing we decided not to. Next, when she went to the walk-on meeting sunday afternoon, there were 31 girls, she was number 27, and there was only one spot (for girls) in Uj. This is where she had been praying to live all summer. And all 26 girls chose to live elsewhere. Anyhow she found out that i was one of her roommates when she picked up her key later that afternoon, but for me it was a huge shock(i came home at midnight). it still is. But i am thankful that God answered both of our prayers. God is good!
I think i'm going to join gospel choir. I strongly encourage everyone to do it. It is so uplifting and everyone is welcomed. It's like a huge family. There are an assortment of years, majors, races? . There's even a non Stanford student/alum there. So come out. Fridays, 6-8:30, in Uj large lounge. Gospel Choir has been a dream of mine for 4 years and i'm glad to finally be able to do it. But that's a dream to be discussed another day.