Meet, Greet and Repeat

Meet, greet and repeat. Orientation week can be one of those whirlwind weeks where you end up meeting more fresh-faced people you ever care to remember. Especially at Cornell, where meeting someone is akin to throwing a pebble into the ocean. Which makes O-week, besides slope day, the most inefficient week at Cornell.

My O-week experience wasn’t much different. Late at night during the first day of O-weeek, our orientation guide rounded us up from our buildings and began forming our groups so we could introduce ourselves.

We made a game out of it. We went around putting the name of a good to replace our last name, and it only worked if it had the same first letter of said last name. I went with “Will Watermelon” because of course I did. I think the point of the game was to help us remember each other’s name, but honestly, the only one that’s stuck after a year is the girl who burst out laughing because she called herself “Sarah Sushi.” It’s just too bad that proved to be the high point of the year for me.

Orientation week isn’t about making a wide cast of friends, though. It’s about starting to make those strong bonds with a small group of people that matter the most. At the end of O-week night session, I noticed a boy who was sitting off to the site. I introduced myself.

“William.”

He stuck his hand out to shake.

“Adrian.”

“Adrian … what?”

He sighed.

“Adrian Apple.”

And a year later, with our stint as CS 1110 project partners in the rearview mirror, we’re now friends who talk regularly. That’s why it doesn’t bother me when I realize I haven’t seen anyone from my O-group. All you need is that one good friend to make it all worthwhile.