Leaving Home: My First Home Away From Home (#4)

I spent a couple of summers in Mexico before actually leaving home, but I will save description of the Mexico trips for another blog.

At the Dorm

This one will be about my first home away from home after graduating from high school (in Overland Park, a southwestern suburb of the Greater Kansas City area). I think my high school graduating class had 700+ students in it. Lots of us headed over to Lawrence, Kansas, to the University of Kansas, just less than an hour drive away. A new piece of highway was completed sometime in my early days at KU, making it a very easy drive.

Why KU?

I had considered going to the University of Texas at Austin because of their great Spanish department, which was going to be my major, but there was no source that I knew of the extra money I would need beyond the cost of going to KU, which was what my father said he could and would sponsor. In-state tuition at KU in those days was about $250/semester or less. Housing in the most affordable dormitory, double occupancy, was about $1300 for the year if I remember correctly. Can that be true? Or was that per semester? It was pretty cheap, anyway!

Corbin and GSP, Freshman Girls' Dorms Side by Side

OK, so, the dorm that I stayed in was called Corbin, located several blocks north of the KU campus. It was part of a 2-dorm complex called GSP-Corbin, and was all girls. I had wanted to stay at Hashinger, a coed dorm where various of my cousins had stayed, but we sent in the dorm application too late, and I didnt get in. When I learned that various of my Christian friends from my high school were going to be in Corbin, I was less disappointed about that. But I WAS disappointed that I ended up being the odd girl out when it came to matching up with roommates, so I was going to take potluck with roommate selection. My roommate ended up being a spunky and interesting girl from Canada, named Helen. We were different in lots of ways, but got along well. Right away, she proposed coordinating our bedspreads, so we went shopping at JCPenney and got matching ones, complete with pillow shams. I still have mine! I also bought a piece of carpet to match the color scheme, which was various shades of blue.

Room Specifics

Anyway, Corbin Hall was a rather historic building, from what I understood . . . being one of the oldest dorms west of the Mississippi or something like that. Our room was basic, but had a great benefit compared to other dorms that I have seen: it had a little closet room with just a sink in it. Though not as convenient as having a toilet and/or shower there, this meant that in the mornings, we could brush our teeth, fix our hair or whatever, without disturbing each other too much. I did end up working some breakfast shifts in the dorm cafeteria, so this was beneficial.

Like a Hotel or Mansion

Otherwise, it was like a huge hotel or a huge house with many rooms. Did not look too institutional; had a more homey feeling than some dorms, which are more like office buildings or school buildings. I think there was a fireplace in a lobby on the ground floor, if I recall, and a very nice media room with stereos and such, where a person could go listen to music or record music from records to cassette tapes. I made lots of those cassette tapes for myself in preparation for my summer abroad in Mexico the following summer. There was a recreational area in the basement with a ping pong table and I'm not sure what else.

I will write more about Corbin as my memory gets jogged. For now, this is the basic run-down on my first home away from home.