The Week Before Classes
I step out of the car at the place I’m supposed to call home for the next few months. I cover my eyes as the sun blinds me and stretch my sore legs from sitting in the car for the last six hours. My parents stopped along the way, but I never got out. My name is Tamie Graham and I’m a freshman at Brookfield Tech majoring in Electrical Engineering. I got accepted to the school and learned about Living Learning Communities aka LLCs, so I decided to join Ikigai which emphasized a focus on taking care of yourself and connection. They are located in the Sinclair Hall which from what I could understand was an arch shaped building with what looked to be three floors. The Director of the LLC sent a picture and instructions on where to park and how to get to the building.
My dad opens the trunk. “I think there’s carts to use over there.” He points to the corner of the parking lot where there’s a big patch of grass. At that corner there’s a table with two people and very few parents and students. My parents and I being the early birds we are, I picked the earliest timeslot which was eight in the morning.
My mom climbs out of the car and walks over to get a cart with me.
As I approach the table one of the guys seated there smiles. “Hello, welcome to Brookfield Tech, I need a phone number and name before you can have a cart.”
I smile as I give him my information. I then take a cart and head back to the car.
A few hours later and I’m mostly moved into my dorm room. It’s a spacious room with two lofted beds. Under each bed is a desk and in front of my bed is my dresser. Beside the dresser is our shared mini fridge with a microwave on top. This is the first year the school provided these for students and honestly I’m glad not having to figure out that hassle. On the other side of the fridge is my roommate’s dresser. Across from that is our shared sink and mirror. To the left of that is our small bathroom which only has a toilet, a bar to hang towels and a shower. To the right of the sink is a small closet which I don’t plan on using. My roommate and I got a hotel style room since we are the only ones in the building registered for Gender Inclusive Housing. I signed up as I didn’t want a roommate who was homophobic and my roommate Maria Fang signed up because she or they are nonbinary. Thankfully they’re okay with being called feminine pronouns otherwise I’d constantly be messing up her pronouns. I glance at my desk to see a handwritten message on an index card from my Ikigai mentor, on top of a dark green shirt with the words, “IKIGAI: A CONNECTION FOCUSED LIVING LEARNING COMMUNITY AT BROOKFIELD TECH”. It has his phone number and a nice message along with my name at the top. My mom smiles at that. “That’s nice.”
I smile. I don’t say anything out loud, but I wasn’t expecting the handwritten note and honestly it makes me feel seen for the first time in a long time.
My roommate has yet to show up and all my parents accomplished before leaving was helping me get my sheets on the bed and clothes in my dresser. Now I have to sort through all my stuff. I decided to leave the door open as I was told that’s a good way to meet people. As I unpack someone knocks on the door. I glance up to see a man with curly brown hair, small square glasses, and is tall. I’m only 5’3” and I can tell he’s way taller than that. I give him a small smile. “Hello.”
He grins at me. “Hello, my name is Steven. We talked a bit over the summer.”
I nod. “Yea, I remember you. You play a lot of Rocket League right?”
He nods. “We should play together sometime, but I’ll let you finish unpacking.”
I give him a smile and nod as he walks off down the hall. I finish unpacking and then decide to go for a walk. When I return to the dorm, my roommate is nowhere in sight, but there’s some plants and other stuff on her side of the room. I load up my computer and do some of the stuff that’s required from the school. At some point my roommate walks in the door that I left open. She has short black hair, is wearing a green tank top, and shorts. She also has those glasses with the big round lens that was far bigger than her eyes. She sets some things down on her desk and then walks to the door. “Do you mind if I close this?”
I glance up at her and shake my head. “No.” I mutter.
Since COVID just ended, the school said we don’t have to check in with RAs and that carding into our rooms would mark us off. They also gave the requirement that we have to walk to the building in charge of ID services to verify our identity otherwise our cards will be deactivated. They said we have until Sunday. Not knowing what to say to my roommate, I close my laptop. “Do you want to go to ID services together? We have to talk to someone otherwise they’ll disable our cards.”
My roommate who is now sitting at her desk turns to me. “Sure.”
I put on my shoes and then glance at her. “Do you have any idea where the building is?”
She shakes her head. “Nope.”
I check my email and look for the address. I then plug it into Apple Maps on my phone and put on a blue cloth face mask. The two of us then set off. We don’t really talk as we walk, we walk past the basketball center I think, and we find a small area with a table and retractable belt barriers forming queues for lines. There’s two people sitting at the table and maybe only one other person present. It’s about eleven in the morning now. I step up to the open spot at the table with a small smile. The person sitting there gives me a smile. “Can I see your school ID and an official form of Government ID?”
I give a small nod as I pull out my wallet and grab my school ID and Learner’s Permit. I put them on the table. As I do that, my roommate steps up to the other person. I don’t fully hear their conversation, but hear something about needing a physical version of Government ID. The person I was talking to hands my stuff back. “You’re good to go.”
I step off to the side as I wait for my roommate to finish. She walks up. “I wasn’t able to do it, so I’ll have to come back later.”
I give her a nod as I set my phone to go back to Sinclair. We start walking, we walk by a few athletic buildings and then I look at her. “This isn’t the way we came, is it?”
Maria shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”
I look at the route on my phone. “It wants us to walk along a road.” I look around and head off in the opposite direction of where my phone is telling me. For some reason my phone was telling me to walk from my location to a road and then follow it. I end the route and try to restart it only to get the same results. I frown as Maria and I wander around trying to find our way back to Sinclair. After an hour or so we finally make it back and head back to our shared room. I then get on my computer and look at the club portal to find some clubs to join. My plan is to go out of my way doing a lot of things to try and make friends. I mean I had people who called me a friend in high school, but looking back. They never listened when I talked. If another “friend” wasn’t there, they wouldn’t sit with me at lunch. Actually it felt like they only tolerated me. I remember one time where I was talking, “so the game has you-”
Another person started talking to the person across from them, “how was your date with your boyfriend.”
I stopped talking feeling sad that they weren’t actually listening.
I sigh as I exit the memory. I feel like the school system generally failed me. Like I was an outsider compared to everyone else at my high school. All the people who called me friend in high school, I realize were never truly friends. A few of the people from my high school attend BT as Engineering majors. Mostly due to how the school has a deal with my high school. Despite it being across the state, they said if students have a certain grade they’ll accept them. I emailed one earlier planning to hang out and he gave me his phone number. I sign up for a few different clubs including PokeTech, Kendo, and a few others. I then glance at the time which reads five o’clock in the evening. I glance at my phone to see some messages about some upperclassmen taking freshmen to lunch and to meet under the arch at the center of the building. I grab my phone and head out to join them.
A few days later, I’m inside Wallace Hall. Apparently my RA is required to tell us a bunch of info and the RAs walked everyone to the room. I sit at a random desk in the back of the room. “Okay guys, so for some reason we can’t do this in the building. I don’t understand why. First thing, I’m Madi and I’m your RA. The official term is that I’m a student leader.” Madi shrugs. “They changed the name to make it sound nicer, but basically I’m an RA.” Madi hands out some papers and pens, goes over some basic rules like quiet hours, proper etiquette, and some other boring stuff. We write down our name and some goals and hand them back to her. She refuses to take the pens back. We then all file out. The next day we all show back up to the room. “So guys, I don’t know if you heard, but Regent Hall broke their elevator at two in the morning. Apparently there were twenty of them in the elevator, drunk, and jumping to our school theme song.” Madi sighs. “They set off the earthquake sensors in the elevator and my friend had to write them all up.” I shake my head in disbelief. I mean I had heard Regent Hall is known as the party dorm, but classes haven’t even started and they already broke the elevator. I’m glad that no one in Sinclair has been that rowdy yet. We head back to the dorm and I grab the chalk my mom bought for me from my dorm room. She told me it’d be a good way to meet people. So I step outside the building and sit down, send a message in the group chat, and then start drawing. I’m not very good, and I usually avoid drawing any other time. The week before classes start is over now, and a few people have come down to join me in drawing. Some write messages like “Congrats 1st Week Done”, a smiling snail saying: “Have a good day!”, “^ The Best LLC ^” with a leaf and heart. I keep it simple and just put “Ikigai” and I draw a little castle thing.
