Welcome to College

Out of all the days in life I will never forget, my first days of college are among those. Why? Well, it was not only a chance for me to reinvent myself, but it was also a new exciting stage in life. It was quite nerve wrecking as I anticipated it. That one first day was going to be important. New people, new environment, new everything. I had so much anxiety that I barely managed to sleep.

Little did I know, my lack of sleep was actually going to help me on those first few days.

How so? Well, you know how college is basically a chance for many of us to make a good first impression? Take that well known fact and combine it with older students who look to give freshmen an unforgettable initiation. That's right, it's a recipe for disaster. And yet, it's also tradition. At least, that's how we did at the good ol' UPR (University of Puerto Rico). Older students would hunt down the new ones and give them an initiation they would never forget.

I'm hunting freshmen!

And now, here's where my lack of sleep kicks in with the story. It was easy to identify the new students because they both looked excited and were possibly wearing new clothes. Me, on the other hand, I looked like crap from lack of sleep. I didn't comb my hair, put on the first shirt I could find, and put on some sandals. So when I went to my first day, I looked like any other college student. I was sleep deprived, didn't bother to prepare for my first day, and looked like I was in a foul mood.

So when I marched in through the main entrance (a big mistake for all freshmen), they gave me one good look and didn't think I was a freshman. And then, I got one of the biggest scares I've ever had. I hear one of the students behind me yell freshman with all his might. My face froze up like a person who just used botox, my whole immune system stopped, and my heart seemed to be waiting for an attack. I pretended not to be bugged by this and just walked into the main building (where all students took class, so I was safer), then proceeded to go into the first bathroom and restore some feeling into my face (by spraying it with cold water, what were you thinking?).

Turns out there was a fellow freshman behind me and the poor sap got initiated.

However, just because I managed to escape once didn't mean I was in the clear. After my first classes, it was time to spend some free time between classes. I would have normally gone to the cafeteria to meet with friends and relax, but I couldn't do that as a freshman. At least, not in the first weeks. I had managed to learn every hallway imaginable so I could avoid the "freshman routes" and manage to survive. So for the first few weeks, I spent my free time reading comics in the library and eating my lunch outside classrooms.

This was my shelter when I started out. And yes, it's an actual picture from the university for once.

Little did I know, but my few survival tips actually made me look more like a college student than I thought. I was blending in, for once. And coming from a high school geek who stood out for being a strange kid, suddenly turning into just another college guy who blended in was a bit of a breath of fresh air.
However, I didn't know that the next months were going to bring about a new layer to my personality that even I didn't know. And to think it all started with a mountain bike...