Hump day

Aug 31, 2005 20:09

Hump day comes to a close in my first week of classes. Unfortunately, I have more classes in the latter half of the week, but nevertheless, the first week is always the roughest at a new school.

Orientation was last Friday...the first glimpse at the class of 60 that I will be spending the next four years with. To put it lightly, I was surprised as I glanced around at the "best and brightest" selected from a pool of over 400. I saw around 15 males, unusual but exciting for a traditionally female profession- and only maybe 2 of them gay! The "token" members were all there: an African-American male and female, an Indian male, a couple Asians, and of course, the Iraqi immigrants- just to prove the political tolerance of the school. The rest of the class...white, early-to-mid twenty, females.

It seems as though every college, every classroom has "that person". You know who I'm talking about, the one who sits in the front row, nodding enthusiastically at every fact escaping the professor's mouth, laughing hysterically at all of the dry humor, taking notes so quickly that you'd swear their hand is mechanical. Their arm raises high into the air at every question, even rhetorical ones, and their answers often lack any intelligent content- perhaps the ability to analyze was blocked by the brain message controlling the speed of the hand raise.

Then there's that "other person". The one who walks in late to every class and instead of sitting quietly in an aisle seat towards the entrance, they choose to apologize, with a giggle, to the entire class and go to the farthest away seat loudly whispering "excuse me..tee-hee..I'm sorry". Upon sitting down, they immediately begin to tell the person next to them the dramatic tale of why they were late in the first place. Their cell phone rings, followed by another "embarrassed" giggle, and the poor-me story of how they were much to busy to remember to turn off their cell phone. Wouldn't it just be easier to stand at the podium and scream, "Look at me!! I'm a fucking princess, pay attention to me!!"

The first week has been filled with all the stressers that first weeks commonly hold. Books, classroom/building location, timing to and from classes, parking, etc. I still do not have my complete set of books. In my traditional procrastination habits, I waited until today to buy them. So, of course, some of them are out. I have an assignment in one of them due Friday, so I'll have to borrow from someone...calling out for favors already! $1030 down, about $300 more to go.

Every building should have a map at the front door. I don't care if it's a perfect square numbered logically by floor, it's bound to be confusing to someone...usually me. Well, the Nursing school is not easy to navigate by any means. It's a massive building that is hooked to the dentistry and medical schools, as well as to University Hospitals. The room numbers are incredibly weird. 31A happens to be on the ground floor, as is room 290 and room 1090B. There's a basement, ground floor, 1st floor and 2nd floor, but the medical school, where we have our labs has 1st through 4th floors...on the same levels. Now I am absolutely horrible with direction as it is, and I just love the looks I get from non-1st year students when I'm headed into a back hallway only to turn around half way through after I realize I have no idea where that hallway leads.

Despite the fact that I only live 4.5 miles from campus, it commonly takes me 30 minutes to get to school, all through 25 mph streets covered with stop-lights. Unfortunately, it took me a couple day, trial and error period to figure that out. After sprinting to my first class and arriving about 30 minutes early to class on the second day, I may have finally figured it out.

The issue of parking has been, by far, my biggest headache. I missed the ball and was left with one option of on-campus parking. A lot about 3 miles from the Medical building that has a shuttle running to campus every 15 minutes. It doesn't run earlier than 7:30 (kind of screwing me for my 7:00 am clinicals and 7:30 lab) meaning I wouldn't be able to park there Mondays and Fridays...don't have a clue where else I would park without paying $12 a day. So, a friend tells me about this warehouse that these two Italian men have opened up for public parking in Little Italy (about 2 blocks from the medical building...perfect location). So, I pull in there the first day and the guy says that he doesn't have any spots left and if I want to park there, I have to double park my car and leave my keys. Shady, I know, but I really didn't have any options 15 mins before my class was scheduled to start. So, I did it. I get back in my car after my day is over and sure enough, the $3 I had in my cup holder was gone. Part of me said "It's your own damn fault for leaving money in the car", the other part of me was pissed about how desperate you have to be to steal three bucks from someones' car. So, the guy tells me that for 50 dollars a month, he'll give me a spot. I tell him I'll let him know. As I scurry to find another spot somewhere, the friend who told me about the lot went to park there as usual, with her husband (a dental student who happened to be wearing scrubs). One of the big Italian men who owns the warehouse began talking to my friend as her husband just kind of looked on. The Italian man looked at my friend's husband and asked him why he was "schmirking" (not smirking, sch-mirking). He apparently got a confused look on his face and asked "What is schmirking?". At that point, the Italian guy got really angry and started screaming at him, calling him a pompous, arrogant kid who had no right to treat him with disrespect...blah, blah, blah...in his face, and told him if he ever saw his face in that garage again, he'd kick his ass! It's like the soup nazi from Seinfeld, except Italian and with parking instead of soup! "No parking for you!". So now my friend has no where to park, and I am even more skeptical about this garage. Because I have no other options, I park there anyway and literally run to the door as not to cause any friction!

It's been an interesting start to the week. I feel confused, scared, inferior and excited...yes, finally excited...all at the same time.
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