Freshman Year - first trimester

Mikey stepped into his dorm room Mike set up some posters on the wall of The Beatles and a dragon looking intimidating. He set up his pictures. One of his family when they were in Greece, one of Davis and Henry, one of the girl scouts and the last was just him and Diane. He checked his mailbox in the student center, and got his schedule. The coursework seemed like standard freshman stuff, English, Geometry and the like. He was in accelerated classes when they were an option. Just as he had hoped, his electives were computer science in the Winter and Econ in the Spring. At the bottom of the page, he saw his advisor was Mrs. Miller, of the math department.
Shortly after setting mostly settled, he met his roommate Caleb. Caleb was from Florida and hadn't spend much time up North. It looked like they'd be on the aseball team in the spring. Caleb was big for his age, and was excited to play football in the fall. In the winter, he was going to try skiing for the first time. He put up his poster of Cris Collinsworth (Of Gator fame, said Caleb) and a poster of Paulina Porizkova on Sports Illustrated. He put up a couple of middle school football trophies. There was a picture of him with his parents and twin sister. They talked that afternoon after plans for high school and got to knew eachother. Mikey thought he seemed like a nice guy. Caleb asked about the necklace, and said it was cool that his girlfriend gave it to him. Mikey didn't see the need to correct his roommate.
The first day of classes went smoothly. It was mainly going over the plan for the trimester. Mikey had lunch with his advisor and her other advisees from all the class years. He learned that he could do a trimester abroad if he wanted to. The group of 8 went around the table talking about sports they played, the place when went aboard (if they went out of the country) and the focus of their studies. He liked Megan, who was funny and really liked volleyball. She reminded him of Diane. The rest of the week flew by. The academics were definitely more rigorous than middle school, but Mikey and Caleb figure it out with the help of their study group, which included Sam and Trevor from across the hall. Penny and JoAnn from their English class were part of it too. Wednesday evening, Mikey gave Diane a call, catching up on the first part of the academic year. Caleb made kissy faces at the end of the call causing Mikey and Caleb to laugh.
One week turned into two then three. The study group meet not quite nightly to help eachother out. Papers came and went and problem sets were "crushed" as Caleb liked to say. Caleb managed to make it onto the varsity football team as a freshman. Soccer was the sport Mikey chose for the first trimester, getting on the JV team. He figure it out quickly and did well as a midfielder.
Periodically, Mikey would notice someone in a picture would change. Davis would become a girl in the picture, or Krista became a guy for her monthly stint. Mikey never took off his necklace the first few weeks. Diane came to visit, driven by her mother, after 3 weeks. Mikey enjoyed giving them the tour. Diane met his study buddies and really liked the campus. After a day that went too quickly, Diane left. His parents visited with Zoe the next weekend, and got a similar tour. Zoe thought it looked a bit like some of the colleges she had been looking at over the summer and early fall.
There was a soccer game every weekend, and sometimes on a Wednesday. Between studies and soccer, and those couple visits, the first half of the trimester went quickly. All of a sudden it was almost halloween. He and Caleb decided to do Walter and Jesse from Breaking Bad. Mikey won the rock/paper/scissors contest to be Walter. After not even placing in the costume competition, they went back to their dorm and got settled in for the night. Mikey got a text from Diane while she was in her costume, Skylar White. He also got a text from Davis, who went as a girl as a slutty nurse. Henry was Sasuke from Naruto.
Mikey blinked again, and it was the end of the trimester, and it was time to go home for Thanksgiving. He got home, and saw Jon, who was enjoying college. He was majoring in Business, Japanese and Physics, somehow. Zoe didn't get into Columbia early, but still hoped. Jon was very encouraging. Mikey enjoyed dinner with his family, and then called Diane. The day before Thanksgiving, they spent the day together until dinner. They just walked around town, sat in the park, talking and enjoying eachother's company. Thanksgiving was the usual chaos of his family visiting. He spent the rest of the weekend recovering from the food he ate, spending time with friends and resting. He spent a lot of time enjoying Diane's company too.