Proclamation ponderings: note to self

Dear Sorry Senior Self,

If you're reading this, you're sitting on the opposite side of the chapel, dressed in black like the other senior girls (or, as the informational letter invited, in an "ethnic expression of choice" if you've uncovered some new ancestors during the past three years).

Happy Proclamation Night! Again!

It's you, but three years younger and wearing a white dress like the other freshmen (which made D-Hall even more awkward than usual earlier this evening, not to mention the prime crime committed of wearing white after Labor Day). As a Proclamation tradition, we've been instructed to write this letter to ourselves in the future, probably because right now you're, like, totally missing being me.

Because being a freshman is sooooooooo fun! First Lodges last weekend. University's new three-lodge minimum = make-out maximum. BOMO-ed* 27 RCs!

The campus is soooo beautiful and, according to all the cool upperclassman boys, so are all us freshman girls. They invite us to all their parties, and even if they don't, you can just walk into any apartment anyway. It doesn't matter who lives there (preferably not any bitchy senior girls - sorry, not our fault you're not cute anymore!), as long as there is beer.

You don't even have to touch the doorknob necessarily - usually you can just kick the door open or knock it down and start passing free beer back to all your friends. It's sooo crucial to be out with someone who will take that initiative, otherwise it's sooo awkward trying to decide on the front doorstep whose turn it is to open the door and be the first to walk in.

But we've learned there's strength in numbers, and it's soooo easy to latch onto one of the mobs crossing the lake, or R-lot, en route to the apartments. None of us even have to know where we're going. All you have to do is be good at spotting upperclassmen who are on their walk back, and kind of just follow them home.

Usually, they have a backpack, so you can tell they're not going to party and so probably live there. But then don't go to their apartment - duh, the backpack! - just listen for any kind of noise. Probably the most important thing I'll learn at college - the higher the volume, the funner the party!

We heard someone compare us to an amoeba once, I guess because we do this cool thing, usually around 9:30 p.m., when all the separate mobs merge into one while storming across the IM fields. I called home right away to tell my mom: I have friends!! Hundreds of them!

OMG - totally forgot to tell you: The other day, this senior guy messaged me on Facebook. I've never met him before, isn't that creepy romantic? He looks super cute in his pictures, and we have three overlaps in our info: one in movies and two in music. So basically, we're made for each other.

He asked me to meet him under the gazebo tonight, and we all know what a kiss under the gazebo means! I've already bookmarked three Web sites with wedding dresses I was just destined for. Wait, I wonder if you can get Lilly wedding dresses and Vineyard Vines tuxes ... OMG it would be too perfect!

The message did mention a little more than kissing, though. I wonder what the wedding superstition clause covers? Hmm, maybe it's in the handbook.

But before I get ahead of myself, I have to find out if he's in the right fraternity - you know, the cool one. A girl on my hall told me I should only talk to the boys in that one, which shouldn't be hard because they're not allowed into each other's parties.

But first I have to get into the right sorority because, as my friend put it, "It's Sorority X or die." (I already started ironing its letters in all these really cute patterns onto all my T-shirts, so hopefully they won't be pried from my casket this time next semester!)

OMG - my roommate and I better both get in. We're already BFF - like, I bet you two already have your invitations for the four-year-roommate steak dinner (Carolyn Bigler, assistant director of housing = cupid) - but I'm willing to sacrifice soulmates and steak for sisterhood. Especially if I'm paying $600 a semester for it.

So I wonder if you have anything to tell me?! Do you wish the letter could be going the other way? Probably, with something lame like, "Be nice to everyone - you really never know how things are going to turn out, whom you're going to be friends with (someone from the other girls' dorm?! No way!), or which person some socialite called a loser is going to turn out to be pretty cool."

Or: "Be yourself - seriously. No freshman is as cool or as together as he or she seems. You'll find the friends who will appreciate you for you, and wish you would've kept some of the old ones while you were figuring yourself out."

Maybe even: "Don't go to the same apartment, lodge, D-Hall table or library section. Go and sit wherever; do and wear whatever. For as small as Richmond can feel sometimes, it will be a happy yet sad discovery when you uncover new but awesome people with only a few months to go."

Hah, as I said: LAME. Hope you're not that boring yet, and is it too much to ask to have some job and/or fiance prospects? Gazebo guy?

Speaking of, back to the herd! Proclamation Night is wrapping up, and I'm trying to make it to the Bookstore before it closes in order to get some more Richmond T-shirts (still have a few months before I can start replacing them with all my sorority ones!). I also need a new lanyard ... got a little too blacked out last night. Again.

OK, you know you love me. Catch ya in three!

XOXO,

Your Fabulous Freshman Self

*black-out make-out, a freshman forte.

Contact opinion editor Maura Bogue at maura.bogue@richmond.edu