Well, if I’m going to do this country girl blog I figured I ought to start it off right; by sharing my first experience in the BIG city. Before transferring to the University of Oklahoma, I attended a small junior college with a total of about 2,000 students. In junior-college I was highly involved with the Baptist Student Ministry; in fact I was one of ten on the leadership team. We would plan events and maintain the happiness of the entire group (which consisted of 30 at the very, very most.)
So the first week at OU I had planned to go to the first BSU meeting, which was the week before school started. After googling the address and typing it in my GPS, I was on my way. As I drove the full three miles it took to get there, I began calculating in my head how many people I was soon to meet. I figured if my ju-co had 30 on the best of days, OU surely had more than twice that many. So I figured there would be about 70 people at this “Pizza Bash” of theirs, and my goal was to know almost all of their names and most of their background stories by the end of the night.
This seemed very rational to me because, coming from a small town—everyone I knew was my best friend. I knew the entire life-story of all 200 kids in my high school, and I didn’t see how this would be any different.
Oblivious, I pulled up to the BSU building, and my jaw dropped a whole twelve inches. There were over 700 kids piled into one parking lot, a live band, and hundreds of pizza boxes! Being the extreme extrovert I am, I felt overwhelmed for the first time in my life. Up until this point in my life, my goal had been to know the life story of as many people as possible (a small town mentality.) As I got out of my car, I took a deep breath and assured myself I could meet at least half of all the students tonight. (I’d tackle the other half tomorrow night.)
Instantly I started talking to a group of girls, the first thing I heard them say when I walked up was, “Norman is just so small!” I think I nearly fainted. The look on my face had to be a mix between dumbfounded and amazement. What in the world was this girl thinking? This was the biggest city I had ever been in! My family and I took trips here to go shopping for crying out loud. The interstate is a mere 5 minutes away, and you think this city is small?! Oh boy, more feelings of overwhelment. I don’t like this feeling.
Luckily an older girl named Lindsay took me under her wing pretty quick and allowed me to follow her to and fro as she mingled with my 700 new closest friends. And after the night was over I had about 3 people I knew fairly well. This was just the first of my many experiences in the big city of Norman, but oh how I will never forget!
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