The First Day of School
The first day of school this quarter was weird for me. It seemed that I had been gone so long and this first day of the second quarter of my third year of college began to feel as if it were the first day of high school. I wanted to pick out my clothes the night before, particularly anything new, and set it out on the chair next to my bed. I wanted to type up an hourly schedule (including extra-curriculars) on Microsoft Excel to carry around the next day saying where each of my classes was, when it was of course, the name (and email) of the professor, the room it is in, a premature ranking of which was my favorite and finally a blank area, where I can put a new ranking (smiley-face, "eh"-face or frown) after each class. I wanted to set my alarm to go off an hour and a half before class began so that I would have enough time to shower and get ready before school, maybe even make myself a cup of coffee and read the newspaper; perhaps I would use the handy timer setting on my camera and take a picture of myself, bookbag over my shoulders. The sun would be shining and I'd do everything in my power to start that day off right, that ever important first day of school.
Unfortunately none of those things occurred. I arrived back at my apartment late the night before school began and decided to get my room in order; a nice clean room is essential to the beginning of a good school day. I unzipped my suitcase and took out a shirt to hang up--wait, no, I'll wear this one tomorrow--I set it aside and took out another shirt to hang up. I opened the closet and grabbed a hanger...grabbed a hanger...where are my hangers? My closet was empty and would remain that way until I got something to hang my clothes up with. My suitcases, on the contrary, remained full and open with random articles strewn on the floor, thrown there when I was trying to find my perfect school outfit which I would lay on my chair next to my bed...which is full of junk that still had to be unpacked but which couldn't be unpacked because my subletter had left a few too many things here that he had yet to be picked up. At least I could make my Excel schedule, right? Wrong. Your computer needs to be set up still and it is getting late and we all know that a perfectly detailed schedule is not quick or easy to make. So, I decided to crawl over my suitcases to my large plastic storage bin and take out all of my bedding to make the cozy bed that I'd get a good eight hours of sleep in. Oh, but it will not be a cozy bed, because there is no comforter in my plastic bin. Finally, I crawled into my bed, pulled my fleece blanket over my body, set my alarm (an hour and a half before class begins!) and settled in for a good and restless night of sleep.
The alarm goes off and I am ready to take my full hour and a half to get ready. The first thing I do is take a nice hot, comfortable shower, of course. The problem, though, is that our green shower curtain has some sort of flakey crusty blackness on it and one look in the wrong direction and your entire shower is ruined because after looking at the mildew-crustiness one will not feel clean again for another eight hours. I showered, nevertheless. I did not feel clean after pulling the shower curtain away to get out of the tub. I return to my room and decide to take my freshly charged phone off the charger, at least one thing will be fresh today. I look at my phone, glance at the time, and see that it says 9:15. My class is at 9:30, that can't be right...oh but it is right. When setting my clock I forgot that I had switched timezones during my drive to Chicago, thus my hour and a half "getting ready period" was only a half-hour period taken up mostly by a gross shower. I rummaged through my bags so that I could find some clean socks and underwear (which I had not set aside the night before) and rushed to get dressed. I take a look in the mirror, see that I look gross and need to shave my face. I look at my watch...plenty of time, right? I shave quickly and cut my face, my first ever shaving cut. What is worse is that over break I fell while running on the side of a mountain and smashed the side of my face on some rocks. So now, with the addition of a bright-red bleeding wound on the left side of my mouth to the already existing scabbiness on the right side of my...entire face...I headed off, late, to what was supposed to be the perfect beginning of the school year.
I knew exactly where the building my class was in. The problem, in true first day of high school fashion, was that the class was on the fourth floor and I could not for the life of me find a staircase in the entire building. Finally I ran into a friend, who after inquiring about the blood on my face, kindly pointed me to the stairs (in true first day of high school fashion). I was late to class. I sat down, got out a new notebook and pen and decided that I can make this class go perfectly. All I needed to do was pay attention and learn and A PHONE! (Whew) not mine. But oh my gosh, my phone is on, my phone is on and it is not on silent, NO, my phone is on the loudest it can go (so that I could hear over the music if my parents called while I was driving to Chicago) the loudest setting, I am screwed, someone will call me only because my phone is on, that is how my luck is. I decided to discreetly turn the phone to silent. I hit the volume button oh not good. Well that's one click and it only should take four to turn to silent... (people staring at me) This isn't a good idea. My phone charger was mocking me from my bedroom..."freshly charged"...grr. So, instead of turning the phone to silent, I chose to I choose to sit through the entire class with one hand holding an unmoving pen on paper and the other hand on a (loud) phone hidden (not-so) discreetly in my bag in the seat next to me. It wasn't the best first class.
Ok, my second class is at 1:30. Yes, Professor Bevington's Shakespeare at one-thirty. I'll work in the coffee shop from 10:30-1:00 and have plenty of time to get on over to my class. The coffee shop proves to be uneventful except for a small dispute as to whether the Bevington class was at 1:30 as I though, or at noon as my co-worker thought. We argued a little until I made him go check the internet. He came back assuring me that it was at 12 when another co-worker pointed out that there are two Bevington classes this quarter, History of Drama at noon and Shakespeare at 1:30. Thinking that was all cleared up my coworker left at noon for class. The shop because slow and dull and time seemed to be moving slow when I looked at my watch: 1:30!! I'm late for class! I pack up my things and literally run to my class only to find that the door is shut and there is no one around. I open the door. The room is full. As I walk to the nearest spot on the wall where I would stand awkwardly the rest of class, I see my coworker who was in the 12noon class when I realize...it isn't 1:30. One of the two professors in the class walks over to me and hands me a syllabus. After receiving the syllabus I took out a pen and paper and quickly took notes on what I was hearing so that I wouldn't look awkward. Unfortunately what I was hearing was myself saying over and over to myself, "You're an idiot. You are an IDIOT!" Thus that is what is on my notes for that class. Oh, and the nearest spot on the wall happened to be exactly where the radiator was, seeing that there were no chairs I leaned against it (hot) and seeing that the class was already a half hour into its session, I decided not to disrupt by taking off my jacket. I had pit stains the size of Lake Michigan by the end of that class. This did not prove to be very beneficial because a few people in that class who I knew came over at the end to talk to me and now instead of just a bloody, scabby face I now had huge pitstains running down both sides of my torso. Our conversation was brief.
My next class was in the same room, but you probably could have guessed that considering I had shown up to that room an hour earlier thinking it was my room. Anyway, because I was there so early I got a chair which was a nice contrast to the radiator, yet maybe not a better decision consider that despite my "extra hour" of sleep that morning I fell asleep shortly into the class.
And then I woke up...and walked out of the classroom. But while my first day of class did end with me waking up, it was certainly all a reality, I have the scars (on my face) to prove it.
Unfortunately none of those things occurred. I arrived back at my apartment late the night before school began and decided to get my room in order; a nice clean room is essential to the beginning of a good school day. I unzipped my suitcase and took out a shirt to hang up--wait, no, I'll wear this one tomorrow--I set it aside and took out another shirt to hang up. I opened the closet and grabbed a hanger...grabbed a hanger...where are my hangers? My closet was empty and would remain that way until I got something to hang my clothes up with. My suitcases, on the contrary, remained full and open with random articles strewn on the floor, thrown there when I was trying to find my perfect school outfit which I would lay on my chair next to my bed...which is full of junk that still had to be unpacked but which couldn't be unpacked because my subletter had left a few too many things here that he had yet to be picked up. At least I could make my Excel schedule, right? Wrong. Your computer needs to be set up still and it is getting late and we all know that a perfectly detailed schedule is not quick or easy to make. So, I decided to crawl over my suitcases to my large plastic storage bin and take out all of my bedding to make the cozy bed that I'd get a good eight hours of sleep in. Oh, but it will not be a cozy bed, because there is no comforter in my plastic bin. Finally, I crawled into my bed, pulled my fleece blanket over my body, set my alarm (an hour and a half before class begins!) and settled in for a good and restless night of sleep.
The alarm goes off and I am ready to take my full hour and a half to get ready. The first thing I do is take a nice hot, comfortable shower, of course. The problem, though, is that our green shower curtain has some sort of flakey crusty blackness on it and one look in the wrong direction and your entire shower is ruined because after looking at the mildew-crustiness one will not feel clean again for another eight hours. I showered, nevertheless. I did not feel clean after pulling the shower curtain away to get out of the tub. I return to my room and decide to take my freshly charged phone off the charger, at least one thing will be fresh today. I look at my phone, glance at the time, and see that it says 9:15. My class is at 9:30, that can't be right...oh but it is right. When setting my clock I forgot that I had switched timezones during my drive to Chicago, thus my hour and a half "getting ready period" was only a half-hour period taken up mostly by a gross shower. I rummaged through my bags so that I could find some clean socks and underwear (which I had not set aside the night before) and rushed to get dressed. I take a look in the mirror, see that I look gross and need to shave my face. I look at my watch...plenty of time, right? I shave quickly and cut my face, my first ever shaving cut. What is worse is that over break I fell while running on the side of a mountain and smashed the side of my face on some rocks. So now, with the addition of a bright-red bleeding wound on the left side of my mouth to the already existing scabbiness on the right side of my...entire face...I headed off, late, to what was supposed to be the perfect beginning of the school year.
I knew exactly where the building my class was in. The problem, in true first day of high school fashion, was that the class was on the fourth floor and I could not for the life of me find a staircase in the entire building. Finally I ran into a friend, who after inquiring about the blood on my face, kindly pointed me to the stairs (in true first day of high school fashion). I was late to class. I sat down, got out a new notebook and pen and decided that I can make this class go perfectly. All I needed to do was pay attention and learn and A PHONE! (Whew) not mine. But oh my gosh, my phone is on, my phone is on and it is not on silent, NO, my phone is on the loudest it can go (so that I could hear over the music if my parents called while I was driving to Chicago) the loudest setting, I am screwed, someone will call me only because my phone is on, that is how my luck is. I decided to discreetly turn the phone to silent. I hit the volume button oh not good. Well that's one click and it only should take four to turn to silent... (people staring at me) This isn't a good idea. My phone charger was mocking me from my bedroom..."freshly charged"...grr. So, instead of turning the phone to silent, I chose to I choose to sit through the entire class with one hand holding an unmoving pen on paper and the other hand on a (loud) phone hidden (not-so) discreetly in my bag in the seat next to me. It wasn't the best first class.
Ok, my second class is at 1:30. Yes, Professor Bevington's Shakespeare at one-thirty. I'll work in the coffee shop from 10:30-1:00 and have plenty of time to get on over to my class. The coffee shop proves to be uneventful except for a small dispute as to whether the Bevington class was at 1:30 as I though, or at noon as my co-worker thought. We argued a little until I made him go check the internet. He came back assuring me that it was at 12 when another co-worker pointed out that there are two Bevington classes this quarter, History of Drama at noon and Shakespeare at 1:30. Thinking that was all cleared up my coworker left at noon for class. The shop because slow and dull and time seemed to be moving slow when I looked at my watch: 1:30!! I'm late for class! I pack up my things and literally run to my class only to find that the door is shut and there is no one around. I open the door. The room is full. As I walk to the nearest spot on the wall where I would stand awkwardly the rest of class, I see my coworker who was in the 12noon class when I realize...it isn't 1:30. One of the two professors in the class walks over to me and hands me a syllabus. After receiving the syllabus I took out a pen and paper and quickly took notes on what I was hearing so that I wouldn't look awkward. Unfortunately what I was hearing was myself saying over and over to myself, "You're an idiot. You are an IDIOT!" Thus that is what is on my notes for that class. Oh, and the nearest spot on the wall happened to be exactly where the radiator was, seeing that there were no chairs I leaned against it (hot) and seeing that the class was already a half hour into its session, I decided not to disrupt by taking off my jacket. I had pit stains the size of Lake Michigan by the end of that class. This did not prove to be very beneficial because a few people in that class who I knew came over at the end to talk to me and now instead of just a bloody, scabby face I now had huge pitstains running down both sides of my torso. Our conversation was brief.
My next class was in the same room, but you probably could have guessed that considering I had shown up to that room an hour earlier thinking it was my room. Anyway, because I was there so early I got a chair which was a nice contrast to the radiator, yet maybe not a better decision consider that despite my "extra hour" of sleep that morning I fell asleep shortly into the class.
And then I woke up...and walked out of the classroom. But while my first day of class did end with me waking up, it was certainly all a reality, I have the scars (on my face) to prove it.