Those Little Troubles of College: A Freshman’s Enrollment Day

After more than ten days, military training has officially come to an end. I finally have some time to record the various feelings I’ve had since the start of the semester, look back on the people and things I’ve encountered over the past few days, and share some inexplicable thoughts.

Coming to School

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, I decided that I would go to Zhongshan on the 14th for a day of fun, then go to school to register the next day. We drove there the entire way, avoiding the trouble that comes with taking public transportation. If I remember correctly, it was my first time in Zhongshan, so everything felt quite unfamiliar. First, we went to Daxin Xinduhui to eat Haidilao, and spent several hundred yuan (my heart hurts).

The original plan was to visit the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall after eating at Haidilao. Unfortunately, we wasted a lot of time on the way there, and if we had gone to the memorial hall after dinner, we wouldn’t have had much time to look around. So we went back to the hotel to rest. In the evening, we took a walk in the park near the hotel, ate something, and then returned to the hotel.

We got up early the next day because a senior student had said that the dorm rooms had already been assigned, but beds were available on a first-come, first-served basis. I wanted a top bunk, so I wanted to get to school and register as soon as possible. We left the hotel at seven o’clock, avoiding Chenggui Road, where an overpass was being built. Taking a longer route actually got us to school faster—it took a little over half an hour.

Although I had already looked at the school’s scenery many times on Tieba, seeing the Polytechnic in person for the first time still felt somewhat fresh. It wasn’t too different from the university I had imagined. All in all, I was quite satisfied. Many enthusiastic senior students came to help carry my luggage and took me to register and collect my dormitory key.

The stretch from the teaching building to the dormitory was simply devastating. It involved climbing over hills and seemed endless. Only then did I realize how big the school was—almost ten times the size of my high school. Carrying my heavy suitcase to Dormitory Building Nine and climbing to the sixth floor, I discovered that no one else had arrived yet. I was the first.

I picked a clean bed and began settling in. After staying busy in the dormitory for a while, I remembered that I hadn’t eaten breakfast, so I took my parents to the First Canteen to try my first breakfast at the Polytechnic. I ordered a bowl of preserved-egg-and-lean-pork congee for seven yuan. The portion was quite large and filling.

After breakfast, we started wandering around the campus. We walked from Teaching Building D to Building A, then on to Buildings E and F. With a campus map in hand, I didn’t get lost. After getting tired, we sat in the lounge of a teaching building for quite a while. By the time it was almost lunchtime, we returned to the First Canteen once again to see what food was available on the second floor.

The second floor wasn’t arranged as exquisitely as the first floor and looked a bit like a high school canteen, but it had an especially large number of shops and more food than we could count. My parents and I found a place to sit, while my sister went to Yihetang to buy milk tea. She waited in line for a long time before finally getting two cups of Yihe roasted milk tea.

While we were waiting for the milk tea, something my father said made my eyes well up. When I was accepted into the Polytechnic, my father knew that it was a junior college. In his mind, junior colleges were like certain vocational schools, with a poor academic atmosphere and terrible campus environments. He was worried that I wouldn’t have a good university experience.

After my father came to the Polytechnic as well, he said to me, “I can finally stop worrying.” It was clear that he was satisfied with the school after all.

After lunch, we returned to the dormitory, and it was almost time for us to part ways. My sister had booked a ticket back to school, while my parents were also preparing to go home. My father kept telling me to study hard, saying that only by learning useful skills could I establish myself in society. My mother told me to make sure I ate well and took care of my health.

Every time we part, you always pretend to be carefree Smiling, you say, “Go on back,” then turn around with tears in your eyes

A passage from “Father,” a song I used to listen to often, had finally appeared before my eyes. I was moved to tears.