New Energy!

I feel like I could write this entire post in CAPS LOCK! With LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! However, for the sake of your eyes, I won't. What requires such punctuation and emphasis? Why, it's the most wonderful time of the year! What's better than Christmas morning in February??? RA NOTIFICATION DAY!!!! See, there I go with the caps lock again...

I absolutely love this day. The anticipation, the emotions, the processing, the sharing of stories between the RDs of who was excited or shocked or mad or thrilled with their placements. There is such an energy on campus and I love it! I love the sense of possibilities that arrives with a new staff. My mind can't help but jump to themes and Co-RA matching and wing placements. I live for this day!

I went to sleep last night super late and I couldn't help but feel like it was Christmas Eve. I never, ever take my phone with me to bed, but I did last night because I knew I was probably going to get text messages from my current staff once they could check their online status starting at 8am. What I did not count on was all of the Facebook updates that were e-mailed to me by RAs from other buildings! I got one at 8:03am that just said "OHMYGOD" and that was immediately followed by a friend request and then simply a smiley face from another RA.

Then, at 8:34am I got a text from Brian and I knew I was completely awake. As my only returner to the building, I knew that he was going to be excited. I had really prepared him to go to another building so he was a little shocked to find out that he was not only in my building, but he is also going to the be RA for my service floor which he had been hoping for since September. Luckily, he lives right next door so I walked down, he opened the door and he just engulfed me in this giant hug. He said that RAs from all over campus had been texting him starting before 8am to make sure that he checked it on time. He also said he couldn't fall asleep and that he woke up at 7am and couldn't go back to sleep! He is just too adorable!

This was a wonderful way to start the day and Brian reminded me of perhaps my favorite part of the entire day: the RA grapevine. Now in olden days (ie before Facebook) this happened by calling your friends or perhaps running into them on campus, but now text messaging and Facebook status' seem to be the way to get this information out into the RA universe. By 12:30pm Brian had figured out all of our staff members for the next year which is really quite impressive.

My afternoon was pretty great and involved visits by two of my future staff members. One of them just walked in, a huge grin plastered on her face and asked for a hug. Another one walked in and looked sort of shocked. When I asked him what he thought, he gave what may possibly be the cutest answer I've ever heard. He said "I just did NOT see that coming! I was so surprised. I logged out and logged back in at least five times because I just couldn't believe it! This was a bigger surprise than when I got an N64 for Christmas!"

I'm on par with a gaming system. My work here is done.