Double Dutch: First Year

I did a lot of running.

At first it was after the U-Bus. As the loads of other lucky freshmen, packed in like sardines and fortified with their daily dose of "I am somebody" oomph, got a ride to class, I was usually left to book it "across the tracks" from my hovel in E-haus and straggle into the wrong classroom about 45 minutes late.

Then I discovered the P2P. Point-to-point service right from your door, folks. However, the friendly P2P only runs from 9 p.m. until 3a.m., an unfortunate turn of events considering all my classes started before God gets up.

But I couldn't let all that free transportation pass me up, so I had a few rides on the ol' Peter anyway, just to get a feel for campus.

There was a lot of feelin' going on that year.

Which led to more running: to the toilet, out of fraternity houses as the sun began to rise and at the Student Recreation Center, where I joined a lot of other freshmen who'd fattened right up with all that tender lovin' care.

I think there might be a swelling agent in the freshmen dorm water.

Which leads to the second leg of my first year triathlon - swimming. It was a dip in the pool in the wee hours of the morning. Fun until the fellas in our merry band decided to streak through campus and ended their evening saying, "Yes, sir. We're sorry, officer. We're new here, so we just didn't know we had to wear clothes, officer. Actually, we were being hazed, officer. No, we are not rushing . ."

My actual classwork that first year, combined with figuring out where to go and how to get there in the evening, how to get in once I'd arrived and how to overcome that oppressive 70/30 girl-guy thing made my head swim.

A swimming head is not very conducive to the final part of the triathlon: biking. Riding your bike on UNC campus is NOT fun. Bricks in the sidewalks leap out and snag you, leaving you writhing in pain beneath a heap of books, rubber and metal.

I have ridden my bike exactly twice at UNC. On the third day of class, I tried to ride it to Venable Hall, but left it with a sagging chain somewhere on Stadium Drive and walked away covered in grease. After my second biking adventure, which involved a writing assignment on the butt-grabber of Bolin Creek Trail and the infamous Airport Road torture trail, I locked my bike by the library and have not seen it since.

Despite the trials of my freshmen triathlon, the thrill of the experience is one I'll never forget, and was so addictive I almost did it again.

Daniele can be reached at daniele_e@hotmail.com.