It seems like I've been awake for two days. The whole hall committee was downstairs ready to go at 7:15 am. We had fruit & donut holes & coffee & set up our stations. The first years started arriving, well, really early. A break for the picnic lunch, then a brief hall introductory meeting, & Lindsey & I led all our first years (we have like what, 50 people?) to Chapin for an activity. Looked at posters, took an hour break, and then I hung around for two more hours waiting for people to show up. Wilder opened for dinner, so I ate there. Then at 7 we had our first floor meetings, which went off brilliantly. Another break, and it was time to head to Chapin for Orientation 101. We sang the alma mater and then we sang the anti, you know, the "Oh Mount Holyoke we pay thee tuition / In the fervor of youth that's gone wrong/ Each year it gets higher and higher/.... So from bar room to dorm room we stagger/ In the spirit of free love for all/ ...Oh Mount Holyoke what's happening to meeeee/ Oh Mount Holyoke what's happening to me." Breaks for places I didn't know the exact lyrics... Anyway. It was "wicked funny" (as the aunt of a student we met today would have said). Messed up with the dance but had a lot of fun. I hung around till the end. They did a Trading Spaces spoof with Blanchard. Each segment ended with "So you're overbudget... and out of time..." Ha.

Weird event of the day: An FP student comes in after we've already seen her once to give her her room key. She says her porch swing seat was taken from the front lawn. I'm like, what? It was stolen? She says she took all the little parts with her, but left the big bench itself out & returned to find it gone. So we tell her to call Public Safety and put up signs. I come back to the second floor after dinner, and what do I see at the top of our stairwell? A green porch swing bench.

Coolest thing about our floor that I learned just today: Two of our firsties are Oregonians!!

(Also totally excited about our international gals, too bad my Spanish is so shameful!)