Orientation- Wk 1
/We were up by 4am on Monday the 25th to catch our 6:20 flight in Omaha. We had two vehicles piled high with our luggage and plenty of help getting us checked in and walked to security. The flight was delayed after a lady slumped over in her seat from passing out. Between the hot box that was our plane, the lack of airflow during those minutes where you just sit waiting for the plane to start backing away from the gate, and having to wear masks, we were all feeling the stuffiness getting to us. This poor gal fell sideways into the isle, stopped by the arm rest of her seat. Josh raced to aid the airline staff in assessing the situation, where they lifted her out of her seat and laid her in the isle. Josh held her head and waited for her to come to, while checking vitals. She came to and confirmed she’d never passed out or had a stroke or anything of the sort. We waited while they escorted she and her husband from the flight, and then we were on our way. Our connection was in Charlotte, NC. Our layover was so short we had to run from one gate to the next, forgetting Zeke’s gate checked carseat in the mix of the chaos. We still haven’t gotten a call back after leaving a message with the lost and found, which is a shame, since we learned since then that the ticket checkers were wrong and the carseat could have been used in a plane seat. It didn’t even need to be gate checked. We arrived in Richmond, VA on time and were bussed to the campus, where we were checked in, had a health screening done and were given a lunch, much to our relief! We all conked for a couple hours and had a slow evening of unpacking and settling in.
This past week has been filled with ups and downs. We are fully settled in to our “quad” apartments, where we’ve spent 23 of the 24 hours of each day over the past week. Each day was filled with live streamed sessions, but our internet is incredibly spotty, so we’ve unfortunately caught only 70% or so of what was presented. We have scheduled outside time, as we’ve been in quarantine this first week, to be sure no one came in with Covid. We are allowed to go without masks while in our quad apartments but wear masks when we are in the “common room” with the other quad residents. We (the entire campus full of 200+ people) were all tested on Friday and everyone came back negative, except for me. My first test was invalid because the wrong reagent was used - it came back positive, the accident was discovered, it was retested and came back negative but they called me back in to repeat. The second test was negative, but the false positive was still reported to public health. It turned in to a whole debacle and ultimately Josh and I had to drive off campus in a loaner van to an urgent health clinic where I had a PCR swab done. The turnaround time for testing here is 2-4 days, so we were anticipating not being able to attend class until Wed, at the latest. We prayed our hearts out that the test would come back before Monday, and we got the results this morning! Not surprisingly, the test was negative. We rejoice that we get to join the rest of the folks in class tomorrow!
The storm system that dropped 12-15 inches of snow in Omaha the day we flew out rolled over us overnight and throughout this morning. We accumulated about 6 inches, which apparently is VERY unusual for here. So unusual, in fact, that I’ve had grounds to harass my mother-in-law and husband all day because they swore it wouldn’t snow or get very cold here. They lived here with Josh was between 7-9 years old. We had a full half dozen conversations about the weather here over the past several weeks where they were insistent, so I feel pretty good about being vindicated in my insistence that it was going to be cold here and that we wouldn’t be quite adequately prepared for it if we left our best cold weather stuff behind - which they insisted we do. There was a lot of insisting - they won the packing battle, but I won the war. Well, sort of. I was right, but we are NOT prepared for this kind of weather! See images below for proof - but also proof that we will play in the snow, prepared or not.
Josh and the boys are running around in the cold, dark, wet out of doors before we settle the boys in for the night in prep for an earlier start in the morning than any of us are used to. It’s up at 6:00, health check at 7:00, breakfast in the cafeteria (our first meal IN the cafeteria instead of out of to-go boxes from the cafeteria) and then boys checked in to classes by 7:45, and us in class by 8:00. We are excited for the normal orientation experience to start, and to not have to battle horrible internet connection anymore!
