Eric McCarthy's Weblog

I personally cannot wait for the winter break. I moved down here leaving my dad, stepmom, sister, brother and other family behind. Besides all of the family that I had to say goodbye to was my closest friends. I’m excited to just go back home and spend some time with all of those people. I plan on moving into the kappa sigma house in the beginning of the month which should be a pretty positive move. I like being around all of my brothers and plus I would be sharing a room with my big brother who has very similar interests as me. After i get settled in there I’m going to spend about two weeks up in Georgia. I’ll be there for my birthday (which is two days after Christmas) and obviously for Christmas. I’m just hoping that I wont be too bored up there because everyone else has their own schedule. well, if worse comes to worse then I could always get my old job back at the car wash…yeah right not in the north Georgia wintertime. I plan to just kick back and relax up there and have time to catch up with all my old friends. Theres a lot thats happened to me in the 6 short months that I have been down here at South Florida.

I personally cannot wait for the winter break. I moved down here leaving my dad, stepmom, sister, brother and other family behind. Besides all of the family that I had to say goodbye to was my closest friends. I’m excited to just go back home and spend some time with all of those people. I plan on moving into the kappa sigma house in the beginning of the month which should be a pretty positive move. I like being around all of my brothers and plus I would be sharing a room with my big brother who has very similar interests as me. After i get settled in there I’m going to spend about two weeks up in Georgia. I’ll be there for my birthday (which is two days after Christmas) and obviously for Christmas. I’m just hoping that I wont be too bored up there because everyone else has their own schedule. well, if worse comes to worse then I could always get my old job back at the car wash…yeah right not in the north Georgia wintertime. I plan to just kick back and relax up there and have time to catch up with all my old friends. Theres a lot thats happened to me in the 6 short months that I have been down here at South Florida.

Growing up, my family celebrated the typical holidays of an average American family. My favorite time of year was always around Christmas though. Everyone was always cheery, we got out for school for a couple weeks, and not to mention that presents were soon on their way. My birthday is only two days after Christmas as well so anything I didn’t get for Christmas I had a second shot at getting for my birthday. Soon following Christmas and my birthday is new years, which when I was young, was just an excuse to stay up all night and go out and have a good old time. This is always such a happy time of the year, for my family at least. Every Christmas eve we would go to church service and every year I couldn’t ever remember a time that I was consistently so excited. We would get home and enjoy a movie with the family maybe open a present or two (I would try to convince my mom to let me open the biggest ones first) and then try to fall asleep as rapidly as possible. My next favorite time of year would probably be Halloween. We had an excuse to dress up like whatever we wanted, go out all night and get free candy, then proceed to hang out with friends for the rest of the night.

Paying for college was my main concern when i picked USF. I didn’t qualify for any kind of scholarships and my parents wasted $15000 in court fees. Out of state tuition room board and meal plan is costing about $31000. Some how I was receiving money from social security. I got an $800 check every month for the last year that I was in high school, so that gave us $10000 to work with. I worked at a carwash for about 2 and a half years and managed to pay for my car and save about $2000 to come down to school with. I need to get a job down here in Florida because I’m damn near broke, but pledging Kappa Sigma has been taking up a lot of my time. My mom and stepdad are paying most of the way but I promised to pay whatever I can and any loans can be put in my name. Paying my fraternity dues is another issue. The minute that pledging is over I’m getting a job and working at least 30 hours a week because money goes like nothing in college. I’ve already spent $1500 since I’ve been down in Florida just on day to day expenses. My car starting having problems on the drive down from Georgia and I forked out $750 to drop the transmission and fix the problem. Hopefully my dad will be chipping in as much as he can. He’s between a rock and a hard place financially.

I went with my friend and his father to go help set up dj equipment for this party. My friend was Nigerian and probably ninety percent of their clientel was Nigerian as well. They asked me to come along and help set up. After we got all of the equipment up we had downtime for the party so we got to relax, eat, drink malt liquor (nasty stuff btw), and get to know the people there. I felt almost like an outsider at first being the only white person there and for the fact that most of them were speaking their native tongues because they knew it better than english. Even though there was a little of a language barrier I got to see a lot of cultural differences as far as food, drinks, clothes, and even dances. underneath it all though we arent so different. We may have different likes/dislikes and habits but we are all just humans with similar feelings and emotions.

Going out of state for college by oneself is a pretty big step. Needless to say, I was a bit apprehensive about the random roommate assignment. I’m pretty laid back, so getting along with me isn’t the tricky part. The hardest part about living in community, especially on campus, would probably be time management. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. When you share a dorm (whose size is comparable to that of a jail cell) with someone else, you can’t help but have their schedule have an impact on yours. Sometimes it is hard to turn down opportunities for fun or socializing in order to do schoolwork. In this case I sometimes have a hard time resisting temptation, and if I don’t correct this soon, then I am in for big trouble. On campus, there is always something going on. There is a mass amount of peers anywhere you walk ready to distract one from one’s schoolwork or other responsibilities. Besides from that, living in the USF community has been great. I live in beta hall with nothing but other freshmen, so I have met a lot of people in the same boat as myself. I cannot complain about the most influential one (my roommate). So far we have seemed to be meshing well together.

My first couple of weeks of college have been incredible. I was a little apprehensive at first coming from out of state about starting completely over. I only kept in touch with a couple people from orientation, but meeting people here isn’t hard at all. I did the bull haul which was a great way to get a head start and get comfortable on campus before most other people moved in. I reside in beta hall, which is a great environment for freshmen. Everyone is friendly because they are all in the same boat that I was in. I couldn’t have asked for a better roommate even though i was a bit apprehensive at first. I love the newfound sense of freedom that I get here without my parents constantly on my back about things. I can go out and party whenever and still manage to get my stuff done. We went out to the clubs a couple nights and had a blast. The university does a great job in assisting you with rides, even all the way to prana in downtown. I attended the first two football games and they were by far the best games that i have ever been to. The atmosphere is undescribable. I managed to meet a lot of beautiful girls and made one of them my girlfriend already. I had only known her for about 5 days, but at college you have a lot more free time to hang out and get to know people. This has been the best couple weeks of my life and it is just getting started.