June 13, 2009 9:06 am PST

The plane ride took four and half hours, the taxi ride took 35 minutes, and check in took 7 minutes, but I was finally here! I could actually feel closer to her. My parents were livid. They hated my decision to move so far away from them so they had rules.

Rule #1: We had to look at CSU as a family first, before any concrete decisions were made.

Rule #2: If, in fact, I chose to make CSU my future residence for the next four years, I was to call four times a week and email the remaining three.

Rule #3: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Easter, and Summers were Theirs. No exceptions!

Rule #4: Tattoos, piercings, motorcycles, pregnancies, gangs, orgies, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and boys in the dorm room were off limits. My mother swears that she has a test for all of the above that she would administer each visit.

And

Rule #5: If any of the above were broken I would be moving on back to Ohio.

Now, I may be a little naïve, however, I know that I could get around most of my limitations, specifically in rule #4. You can guess the two I’m not really worrying about. And I can honestly say the no alcohol rule would be the only rule I was planning on breaking.  But like I said, I don’t think they’d know. I’ve never been a big drinker and I doubt I’d change my view so drastically that they would know.

So here we all are, staying at the Comfort Inn, less than five miles from my destiny! The four of us are going to be attending the family orientation festivities which include all the usually stuff: campus tour, financial aid information, and course recommendations and so on.  I’m trying not to get to excited. Madame Juliet only promised that “going to CSU would lead me to where I’m destined to go.” Whatever that means. It may take months or even years to find my soul mate, but this was the first step! I just knew that once I set foot on campus that I would have one of my “feelings!”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!

This whole place is so wrong! I don’t feel anything! The campus is nice enough, the people are cool, it’s just not me! Ugh, and my mother keeps looking at me every five seconds trying to gauge my reaction to everything! I just plant a smile on my face and act like I’m pleased to be here.