The University is waiting.
The Lawn, quiet all summer except for the occasional Frisbee-playing dog, now hosts an army of folding chairs ready for first years to sit for convocation.
Businesses on the Corner are beefing up their inventory and staff in preparation for the return of their largest group of customers.
Stores in the Barracks Road shopping center are filling the shelves and bracing themselves for the most intense weekend of the year.
There is no wait at Littlejohn's. No one has to stand on the bus. Dean cannot form two lines at O'Hill -- yet.
Today, all of that changes.
Parking will return to its normal state of constant insanity. The bookstore will be so full of students and books that check-out lines will wind their way into the shelves of University merchandise.
The biggest reason for the return to the University's hustle and bustle is that first years arrive today.
But they're not the only ones moving in.
James Aldige -- Home, Home on the Lawn
Up McCormick Road on Central Grounds, the Lawnies are entering into one of the University's longest traditions -- a lack of connected bathrooms.
"They're not too far away," said fourth-year College student James Aldige. "It'll take a little bit of time, but I think I'll get used to it."
Move-in began on Monday for Lawn residents, giving them an escape from the madness first years face.
"Move-in day is such a zoo," Aldige said. "Moving in early was nice."
Lawn residents, however, still face parking challenges similar to those of first years.
"Parking is kind of difficult around here," Aldige said. He parked behind the pavilion next to his Lawn room to move his things in, and ended up blocking a Pavilion resident when she came home. "She was really nice about it," he said.
While first years can have cars starting second semester, parking remains a year-long challenge for Lawn residents.
"I'm sure I'll forget where my car is like every other day because it'll be in a different spot," Aldige said. "I won the lottery for a space under the Dell but that's not even that close."
While Lawn residents don't have to worry about getting along with new roommates, they do share the first years' struggle with a lack of air conditioning.
"It's been hot," Aldige said.
He said he does not feel like a Lawnie yet, even though he held his first tailgate already.
"I haven't fully gotten the feel of it yet," he added. "It's dead right now. I don't think I'll feel it until classes start and there are people walking by."
T.V. Cao -- Some Like It Hot
Being an international student brings its own set of move-in challenges.
Getting your things to Charlottesville, for one thing. And then adjusting to life a long, long way from home.
First-year College student T.V. Cao has been in Charlottesville since last Wednesday.
Cao has spent the last two years in an exchange program that matched him with random families for the school year.
Originally from Vietnam, he spent his senior year of high school in Chesapeake, Va. and was able to drive all of his belongings up from there.
He spent his junior year in Florida, and he faced a challenge that many international students now face -- putting everything he really needed into two suitcases for the flight.
He said language has not created a big problem for him, because he spoke English before he arrived.
But if he gets homesick, he can't exactly go home for the weekend.
Cao keeps in touch with his parents by e-mail and, sometimes, Instant Messenger. "I should e-mail more," he said.
He probably won't get to go visit until the end of the year, when he needs to go home and renew his passport.
But he's excited to be here.
"It's a beautiful campus," he said. "And I really like this weather."
Vivienne Bui and Kristen McElligott
Putting It All Together
Bill by bill, box by box, Vivienne Bui has been piecing together a household all summer. "Telephone," "water" and "electricity," now are ingrained in her checkbook vocabulary. She's still waiting to add "Internet" -- one of the dorm perks that Bui and her four roommates traded for a kitchen and independence in their new apartment.
"You have so much more stuff to think about now," Bui said. "It's not as nice as last year when you just moved in and plugged in your computer."
Bui moved into her apartment in The Pavilions on Jefferson Park Avenue while taking ECON 201 during summer session. The Norfolk native made three car trips to bring her things, including the kitchenware she was in charge of supplying.
Kristen McElligott, one of Bui's roommates, couldn't cart everything in the car from her home on Long Island, N.Y. She mastered shipping and storing instead.
McElligott, who moved in Tuesday, kept books, winter clothes, Yaffa blocks and a microwave in a storage unit downtown. She mailed six boxes and a trunk stuffed with clothes and sheets. When she bought the shower curtains, bathmats and toothbrush holders for the apartment's two bathrooms, she had those mailed, too.
Amid everything they've had to bring to their new place, there's one item Bui said she's happy to do without.
Shower shoes.
A Place to Call Home
And so the arduous tasks of unloading, putting things together, painting and cleaning end today -- for the most part. When it's all said and done, the mini-vans will return to their homes, be that a dark garage or a crowded parking lot at Hertz, and the University's students will be left with new places to call home.
An apartment for three. A room for two. A house for 10. A dorm for hundreds.
Different ceilings, new walls and updated photos. But it's home -- at least for the next nine months or so.
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