By Elizabeth Scalzo
Editor-in-Chief
Starting May 14, resident students returned to the FDU metro campus to move out of their dorm rooms in the midst of the pandemic. Students had to apply for 90-minute time slots to move out, and once their day and time were confirmed they could bring one other person with them to retrieve their belongings.
My day was Monday, May 18, and my time was noon. I am from a small town in central Pennsylvania so this meant my stepdad and I had to be on the road at 6:30 a.m. to make the five-hour trip. The drive to campus seemed like nothing compared to the journey ahead of moving out in 90-minutes.
Being that I live five hours from campus, my dorm room was full of everything from clothes to totes for my sorority to art supplies, cleaning supplies, and entirely too many pillows and blankets. I do live in my dorm for eight months of the year, after all.
Since I live in Northpointe, I had to check in, in the Northpointe lobby. Monday afternoon was a smart move on my part because there was only one other student moving out of the building at the same time as me and there could have been up to eight. I received my temporary room access card and my stepdad and I went to start the race against the clock to pack up eight months worth of things.
Things that could just be taken out like my mini-fridge and the prepacked totes I keep for my sorority my step-dad took out first. He was smart and brought a dolly to load everything. My first task was to load all of my clothes and bedding into black garbage bags. I set alarms on my phone to go off when I should have been done with each task.
I don’t know if you have ever tried to pull all of your shirts off of hangers and throw them into garbage bags but it isn’t as easy as you would think, especially if you are like me and have felt hangers so your shirts don’t slip off. It’s safe to say that after 20 minutes I had my clothes backed up and I was already severely sweating. I spent the next 10 minutes tossing bedding into garbage bags and finished my task just in time for the timer to go off. Whew!
I then moved on to the bathroom. My biggest regret ever was putting up my own shower curtain. Trying to get a shower curtain off the hooks in a quick time frame just doesn’t happen. You can try, but you are doomed to fail. Other than the shower curtain difficulty, the bathroom cleaned out fairly easily, and I moved on to the desk and walls. Let me remind you while I did all of this I stacked the bags and totes into the hallway as my stepdad took them down to the truck to load.
With about 30 minutes left, I had to empty out my desk and remove everything from the walls. (Note to self: No more picture walls.)By this time, I was drenched in sweat and I was so red I looked like I went to the beach with no sunscreen and fell asleep. However, I persisted and I did not get everything in the 90-minute time period.
I consider going over my time by 15 minutes an accomplishment in itself. I felt like I had just run a 5k, but the job at hand was done.
The worst part? Having to drive five hours home in clothes that smelled like sweat. I think the time slots should have been two hours because I didn’t even get the chance to sweep my room, which I would have liked to do.
Needless to say this experience has made me want to live more minimally in case I am ever in the move-out Olympics again.
Via Elizabeth Scalzo
An empty dorm room means a full box trailer.
