"It's 'Katie'" "Yeah, I'm gonna call you 'Caddy'"

Today has been an insanely busy day. We left for breakfast at 8:30am. The dining hall was closed so we went to "Mama's Boy", a cute breakfast restaurant in Athens. There were awesome chandeliers made out of mason jars and bottles, which would be super awesome to make.

Awesome chandelier

All of the drinks were served in mason jars. I was in heaven. I had a strawberry lemonade, which was absolutely delicious. For food, I had a bacon, egg, and cheese scrambler with cheese grits and a biscuit. I never had grits before and decided that there would be no better time or place to try them than in Georgia. I was pleasantly surprised with them.

After breakfast, we headed back to campus to go over logistical items. The residential staff discussed the game plan for the next month. It seems like it is going to be really intense, but also a lot of fun. I am really excited for the RC's to get here on Tuesday and for the students to arrive on Sunday. (I previously said Friday, but I was misinformed....)
Around 12:30, we headed to lunch. I decided to go for the 'healthier' option of a salad. (Mainly because I was still stuffed from breakfast....) After lunch, we headed to the staff office to finish unpacking and to work on door decorations for the staff members.
After much deliberation, we decided to go with minions from Despicable Me. We had to print, color, and cut out 40 large minions. We were almost finished around 6pm, when we left for dinner.

We headed to a local burger joint called Grind House. I got a cowboy burger with a fried Vidalia onion, grind house sauce, and a 1/4 burger. (It was better than the cowboy burger at Keswick Tavern!) I realized after I sat down that I could order a beer. I decided to go with a Blue Moon. (How adventurous, right?)
After dinner, we came back to the staff office to work on the door decs. We seriously have lost our minds at this point. We have been sitting here since about 8pm, laughing at the silliest things, but have been having a great time. Diamond, Tim, Terrance, and I have been bonding over the dumbest things, but it has been awesome. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.

Awesome signage

Diamond decided that she wants to call me Caddy, as in Caddy Heron from Mean Girls. She's not entirely sure why, but it's totally fine.
We have been laughing hysterically for a few hours and I am pretty sure our supervisors think we are nuts.... which wouldn't be entirely false...
We finished the name portions of the door decs, but still have to cut out a few more minions. I think we have had enough crafts for the night, though.

Dinner at Grind House

I've been showing Diamond and Terrance my photography and they really like it. Diamond told me I need to photograph her while we are here. Looks like I will be boosting my portfolio this summer.
All day we have been busting on Diamond for peeing so much. We've all made bets on how many times she will have gone by the end of the day. She's peed 8 times. Terrance was the closest with 9.
We have also been busting on Terrance about his phone calls. Since we could only hear the one side of the conversation, we decided to make everything a sexual innuendo. Poor Terrance was trying so hard not to laugh while he was talking to his friends. We weren't even the slightest bit sorry =P
Tomorrow, we are heading to breakfast at 8am in a different building. I'm curious if it will be as good as the food in Snelling....
After breakfast, we are probably going to sleep, again, and then we are going to get a tour of campus with Ahmaud. (I might even get to see the art building!)
Until next time,
A

"You can't just do that here... you'll die."

Fancy dining hall

Last night after I finished blogging, I was able to Skype with one of my favorite people ever from home, Tiara. Talking to her made me super happy, but also super tired when I woke up this morning....
Today has been a long day. We went to breakfast at 8:30am in Snelling Hall, which was about a five minute walk from Myers. It is a gorgeous building and apparently is the "older" dining hall, but I was still impressed. When we walked in, there was a buffet style setup, similar to Arcadia, but 10x's larger. I decided to keep it simple and just grabbed some eggs, hash browns, bacon, and toast. We all sat together and tried to plan out the rest of the day. The plan was to eat, have a meeting with our individual groups (Residence Life and Academics), move things out of the storage unit, head to lunch, unpack, head to dinner, and then go to Target for some supplies. Of course, nothing goes as planned in life and we had to change the agenda around because the key to the storage unit did not arrive to the site until the afternoon.

My ID isn't half bad

Before our group meetings, we had to get our IDs from Tate Student Center, across campus, and then move all of the Duke TIP vehicles into the parking deck. We got a small tour of most of South campus and we even saw the football stadium. (Apparently football is a HUGE deal here....)
Once we made it to the parking lot after walking all up-hill, I got to drive a fancy town and country to the parking deck. It was probably the nicest car I have ever driven. (I couldn't even figure out how to start it.... There was a weird key that really through me off and I had to ask Diamond, my co-worker, to help me figure it out.)

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner

When we split into our individual group meetings, the Residence Life staff (myself, Timothy the other RHL, Diamond the Residential Programming Assistant, and Sarah the Residence Life Coordinator) got to know each other a bit better. We talked about ourselves, where we were from, what we study/studied at university, etc. We also talked about our working styles and our expectations. It was a pretty simple meeting. After the meeting, we went looking for the storage unit key, but it still had not arrived. Sarah decided to give everyone a half hour break to just relax and then we met back up to head to lunch at Snelling.
When we arrived, I was overwhelmed. All of the stations were open and had something different to offer. There was a grill, a quesadilla station, a salad bar, a sandwich station, and even a freaking pizza place. I didn't know what to choose. I decided the safe bet would be the grill. Forgetting I was not in Philly, I ordered a chicken cheesesteak. It was an adorable attempt, but it definitely was not a Philly Cheesesteak. I realized there was a dessert bar, so I checked that out as well. They had homemade chocolate pudding so of course I was all over that.
After lunch, we headed back to Myers Hall. One of my co-workers, Ginny, was discussing jaywalking. Apparently, it is taken very seriously in Georgia, especially at UGA. Students get tickets all of the time. I told her that I was not used to that since I am from right outside of Philly. Terrance, another co-worker, and I were joking and saying that jaywalking is the only way to walk in the Philly and New York areas. Ginny laughed and told us, "You can't just do that here.... you'll die. People aren't accustomed to jaywalkers so they just hit 'em." Terrance and I couldn't help but to laugh. Ginny was unfortunately not kidding. Luckily she warned us before we jaywalked....
When we got to Myers, the keys finally arrived. We took five cars since there was a bunch of stuff and still needed to do one more trip. Of course, it began to pour as soon as we returned to campus so we decided to move the cars to the loading dock area (after getting soaked trying to move in from the parking deck....).
Once everything was moved in, I went back to the storage unit with Jessica, the on-site counselor, to pick up the rest of the materials. The rain had stopped just long enough for us to load everything in the car. It poured and then let up again once we arrived back to campus.
After load-in, we started to organize and unpack a little bit before dismissing for a half hour. Sarah decided to continue unpacking and was on a roll so dinner was pushed back another half hour. Of course it was bright and sunny for that half hour. Once we were all ready to head to dinner, the rain poured. It was worse than earlier in the day and continued to get worse. After waiting for 15 minutes, we decided to brave the weather. I didn't have an umbrella so I decided to sprint across campus to the parking deck and jumped in a HUGE puddle. Luckily, my feet were the only things that were soaked.
We made it to the dining hall and I decided to test out the quesadillas. Best. decision. ever.
For dessert, I tested out the fro-yo machine. Another brilliant idea. I swear I'm going to gain the 'freshman 15' this summer, 4 years later.

Beer everywhere

After dinner, Sarah, Diamond, Tim, Terrance, and myself all headed to Target for supplies. I picked up an umbrella so I wouldn't have issues for the rest of the summer. I also picked up snacks and discovered that wine and beer can be sold not only in the same store, unlike PA, but can also be sold in Target. WHAT!? I was amazed. Sadly, I can't have alcohol on campus so I will not experience the thrill of purchasing beer from Target, but it is nice to know that the option is there.

SO. MUCH. WINE.

When we returned to campus, I helped Tim move some cars to the 1st floor of the parking deck. I got to drive another van and a luxury car. It was awesome. I am going to have such a hard time going back to Gertie (my car) when I move back home....

Around 10:30, Diamond and I headed over to Tim's room to help him lower his bed. It was definitely a 3 person (if not 4 person) job. His bed was slightly lofted so it was a bit difficult, but we eventually figured it out.
Tomorrow, we start at 8:30am again. Hopefully we will have a good amount to do. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't like sitting around and need to do a bunch of things or else I feel kind of useless.
Sunday we have a full day off. I think Diamond, Tim, and I are going to explore an abandoned set of train tracks since I have my camera. I'm really looking forward to that.
Until tomorrow (maybe),
A

It's a cute neighborhood, but....

This morning at 7am, I left my home in Roslyn, PA and traveled to the beautiful and magnificent Athens. Sadly, I am not referring to Athens, Greece, but rather Athens, Georgia. (Which is still beautiful, even in the rain.)
I arrived to Atlanta's airport at about 11am and had to navigate to baggage claim. I had no idea at the time, but the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta airport is (one of) the largest airports in the US, which totally explains the need for trains to transport people to and from terminals. Luckily, I just had to jump on the train and ride it to the end of the line to baggage claim. I will probably not be as lucky when I am leaving Atlanta for Philly....

First sight of GA

Around 11:20am, I headed outside to find the shuttle to Athens. Thankfully it was directly next to baggage claim. Once I was outside, a very nice man started talking to me about my flight and where I was headed. He was a shuttle driver and wanted to make sure I was in the right place because apparently I looked a bit lost (I think that's just the way my face is sometimes....). My shuttle arrived around 11:30am and a man I did not know, but was getting on the same shuttle, opened the door for me and helped me into the van. That right there is something that should happen everyone. I know that some people are that sweet, but more people should take notes on this whole southern hospitality thing...
After an hour and a half in the car, the shuttle pulled into South Campus at the University of Georgia: my home for the next two months. The campus is HUGE. I was overwhelmed (and still kind of am) and have only seen a small portion of it. Over 38,000 people attend UGA. That's a little over 15 times the amount of students that attend Arcadia. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around that....

My home for the next two months.

Anyway, once I arrived, I walked to Myers Hall (about a 2 minute walk from where I was dropped off) to pick up my room key. The building is pretty nice, although my room feels slightly like a prison. But hey, I have my own bathroom so that's pretty darn exciting. I spent the first half hour unpacking and setting up my bed. It took me less time to get settled in here than it did when I arrived in Observatory last summer.... (It took me 2 weeks to unpack last summer....) After unpacking, I decided to test out my bed and took a nap. It's not my bed at home, but I think I will manage for 2 months =P

Brought a little piece of home with me <3

Around 3:45pm, I headed to the lobby to meet the other staff members.
(I forgot to mention that I will be working as a Residence Hall Leader for the Duke TIP program and will be overseeing Residents and Resident Counselors, similarly to my job as a Senior Resident Assistant this past year.)
There were 7 people who were already on campus. We are all overseeing different parts of the program. The Resident Counselors will move in on Tuesday I believe and the students will move in on Friday.
We sat around chatting until about 5:15pm and then headed into town for dinner. We went to a pub called Trappeze. It was very..... hip. I liked it though. While we were in the car heading over, my boss mentioned something about piercings and how she is a firm believer that people with piercings are some of the nicest people. She said she has had more positive interactions with people who have piercings than with people who do not have them. I couldn't help but to smile and agree with her.
Dinner was pretty good. I had a 'pub burger' with arugula, cheese, and mayo with fries and garlic aioli.
After dinner, my supervisor took a few of us to Target and gave us a little tour of Athens as we drove through it. It looks like a pretty cute town. Unfortunately, it's not the safest area. She told us not to go running at night for that reason. Good thing I don't really run....
Tomorrow we start preparing for the first term of RCs and students. I'm excited since today was kind of boring. However, I am not excited to get started at 8:30am.
With that being said, I think I'm going to sign off. 

I'm going to try to post everyday, but I am not sure how hectic everything is going to get.
Until next time,
A

Cool taps

My pub burger