here we go again

I am now entering my junior year at Drake. This semester will be marked with new struggles and triumphs. I hope to be able to share most with you. This semester will also have an underlying tone (keeping with the theme) of gearing up for going abroad for the semester. The spring semester will find me in Alexandria Egypt, away from the cold Iowa winter, speaking Arabic and enjoying argeelah, on the Mediterranean sea.
The struggles coming up will revolve around fraternity life, transitioning to being an upperclassmen, finding a job, and the normal college “stuff.”
Wednesday marks one of the events I am most proud of for Drake, First Year Move-in. About 800 first years are coming in. They will park their minivans and u-hauls by the side of the road to check in. When they come out with room assignment and keys, an army of upperclassmen will descend on them to carry their stuff up. This is how we welcome them to the Drake family. (Generally we can get it all with one run of folks.) Everyone helps out, from the Greeks, the religious groups, the service groups, the academic groups. One of my favorite stories from last year goes something like this:
New First year mother is in happy shock from the support and help her son was receiving. There was about one more load and an older man in the same move-in crew t-shirts as the rest of the teams bent down to help carry it. The mother asked if he was a Res Hall coordinator of some sort. He replied “Ma’am it is a pleasure to meet you, my name is President Maxwell.”
Everyone helps.