"Hi!  I'm Jane!  What's your name? … What are you majoring in? …Where are you from?"  And, if you're extra courageous, "So … What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?"

In many ways, it parallels first grade:  "Hi!  I'm Jane!  What's your name?  Which Disney Princess is your favorite?  Do you want to be best friends?"

I would have to argue, however, that the process is kind of sped up in college.  Any time you find yourself not figuring out how blocks and Dinex work, moving dressers out of the middle of your dorm room, buying books, carefully learning how to operate a washing machine, and exhausting yourself at orientation events in hideous orange shirts (people have really got to stop wearing those), you automatically attempt to meet as many people as you can so that you can make your friend applicant pool as large as possible in order to find those perfect friends that you're going to latch onto so that you're not deemed a loser right off of the bat … But come on … We're at Carnegie Mellon University … We're kind of all losers.  As you meet each person you wonder, "Is she going to be one of those people I'm super close with at the end of four years?"  Tentative posses are formed and conversation moves cautiously past the usual, "I heard that's a tough major!" to "Well, do you know what you want to do with that major?"

At the same time, you're trying to keep up with old high school friends who are going through the same thing and everyone just wants everyone to know everyone because, well, we don't want that much to change in four years …

It's funny though, because a lot changes in three months.

You can still get together with your high school friends and know that nothing has changed amongst you except maybe a significant other here or there or some … uh … experimenting with other things, but -- half semester or whole semester or four years – every time you meet again it's like going out any other night after a vacation or something.  Meanwhile, in three short months at college you've quickly progressed from, "Yeah … I don't like that Walking to the Sky statue very much," to, "God, I hope that fugly erection just falls over.  Maybe it'll hit an unsuspecting CS major on its way to the ground!"  In three short months new friends have been made, news friends have been introduced to Pittsburgh rain, new friends have been lost, ID cards have been misplaced countless of times, and three extravagantly surprising birthdays have gone by.  Before you know it, you're dropping grate covers into 5-foot holes in the ground or escorting a friend home after a late night of "hitting up the Fraternity Quadrangle" or complaining about living next to sororities.  (But really, how could ANYONE enjoy waking up to "GAMMA GAMMA GAMMA GAMMA GAMMA GAMMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" at the crack of dawn on a Saturday?)  In three short months, after declaring multiple times that you were going to commit suicide, you realize you some how made it through one-eighth of your college career.  In three short months, you're already past the first trimester of a pregnancy  (WOO RONDELL!).

If all of this and more has fit into a mere 3 months, I can only imagine what'll come out of the next four years.

Let's take a break this next month and put everything in slooooow-moooo, but cram in as much fun as humanly possible.  The Holiday Season means miracles, right?