"The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have." -Dag Hammarskjold
The first day of school in high school used to be fun. You knew everybody in all your classes, and could catch up with them, or listen to them catching up with each other, or write down who was in your classes. The teachers ran over a brief syllabus and told you what not to do in class. In homeroom (where you went once a year exactly), you went over the handbook, which meant you doodled, because everybody has the handbook rules memorized anyway. The first day every year in high school is completely harmless and completely uncomplicated.
The first day of each semester in college is not so easy and uncomplicated. It is kinda confusing and weird to figure out how to spread your time out right. I’ll eventually get it right and be in a routine, but the first week’s kinda strange. Here’s how my first two went (I have to include both, because my new classes are spread over two days). I think I might be crazy for cramping my schedule all up in order to free up Fridays—I have 11 ½ hours of instruction on Tuesdays. Seriously. However, I’m pretty sure having Fridays will be worth it. J
7:18—Wake up. Check out window—there’s snow. Check email and e-net. No delay. It’s always nice to know your school really truly cares about its students not breaking their ankles on the way to class. Nice. Get dressed, wash face, put in contacts, brush teeth, make bed, check facebook…I don’t worry about waking Lora up because Lora is essentially dead in the mornings. Lora sleeps in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and has to get up early on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, when I can sleep. Lora is very noisy when she gets up. But that’s ok, I still love her. Usually.
7:47—Head to Mooney for Sociology, eating some blackberry yogurt, which is incredibly excellent because I haven’t had it in like 98374289 years. Approximately. I throw the empty container in the Alamance trash can, and toss my spoon into my purse, where it will alarm me later. Find the room, enter the room, sit in front row, remove coat.
8:00—Decide that I like Dr. Curry; decide that sociology is sorta interesting; decide that the classroom is cold; try not to fall asleep, listen to Dr. Curry talk about how Valentine’s Day is essentially stupid but mandated by society. Agree with him.
9:30—Finish talking about how Valentine’s Day is a waste of money, and return to dorm. Set down sociology book, and head back out through the snow to Moseley.
9:45—Fight way through throng outside Moseley. Apparently there is some sort of Professionals of the Future (or something like that) breakfast, and it’s crowded. I finally reach the door, enter, find the book table, give the lady my box number, and wait.
9:59—And wait.
10:10—I’m still waiting. I’ve checked my watch 32,000 times. I have class at 10:30, and it’s honors. If I’m late, I’m dead.
10:12—Finally, my box full of very heavy books is out. I carry it out of Moseley and into the throng. Not feeling like battling through the coats and scarves and happy people, I jump up on the brick wall that surrounds the pansy circle and walk above it all. And then I walk back to the dorm. Lora is awake, and my arms hurt.
10:25—Walk down the hall with Kate, Natalie, and Adnan (Lora has to brush her teeth) to the classroom. Approve of the majority of the other students, laugh at Mara and Carissa for being stupid sorority girls, and decide with Kate, Natalie, Katie, Lora, and Carson that Professor Gallucci is boring.
11:10—Really boring. To her credit, she knows she’s boring, and thus gave us an activity instead. Not to her credit, it is a very boring activity.
12:10—And she just told us to watch this video about how the earth is flat for homework. The earth is not flat. I picture myself having a hard time watching this video.
12:15—Kate and I are both panicking about the time, since we both have 12:25 classes at places we’ve never been before.
12:16—We’re out. I never want to see the words “hypothesis” or “theory” again. Which is a pity because I’m taking three science classes and health this semester. I rush to grab my health book and then run to McMichael…
12:22—Where I promptly get lost, having apparently written down the wrong room number, ending up in 207, which is a senior physics lab filling up with people who are most assuredly not freshmen attending health and wellness. I leave, beginning to panic, and, thank God, run straight into Dan Baquet, who—joy of joys and luck of all luck—turns out to be in my health class and not only knows that the room number is 226, but also where 226 is.
12:25—I am hungry, but glad to see Annelise is in my class, for the second time of the day. Plus Baquet, plus Kelly Herrick, plus Mara, plus Jeff. It’s Elon 101: the remix! (Oh please, no.)
12:28—I am already convinced I am more intelligent than my professor.
12:29—Who is pregnant.
12:45—She didn’t really need to reproduce.
12:50—Kinda like how we really don’t need to be working on a get-to-know-you orientation-type activity. Gah.
2:00—FINALLY out. Health class is dumb. And I don’t need to know anything else about nutrition, exercise, college alcoholism, drugs, STDs, AIDS, sex, or depression. We had health in middle school. And also in ninth grade. And plus Elon orientation gives you like four more hours of alcoholism class. And I read the health sections of CNN and TIME on a daily basis. And I danced for fifteen years and got Dance Spirit and Pointe magazines, which told me all I really cared to know about nutrition and exercise. Can we please not be in here?
2:10—Finally cross the street back towards the Pavilions after waiting for cars to pass for about a million years. Ok, maybe it wasn’t quite that long. But when all the puddles are frozen over and it’s like 24 degrees and blowing hard, it sure feels like it.
2:14—Reach room, say hello to Lora, do nothing for quite a while, mainly because having three classes in a row has worn me out a bit and I need rejuvenation in the form of doing nothing. By checking my email I discover there is no astronomy lab today. This makes me very, very happy.
3:15—Stomach growls and I remember that I never had lunch. So it’s out to the kitchen to heat up some chicken-and-rice soup.
3:24—On my desk I have a bowl of hot soup, some crackers, some slices of mozzarella cheese, and a coke. The coke doesn’t quite fit, but water or blue Kool-Aid would fit even less, so there you have it.
3:45—It was very good soup and cheese and crackers.
3:50—I finish washing my bowl and utensils. Being tidy at college gives me a sense of empowerment. Usually.
And I spend the rest of the night reading Sociology and Health, messing with the housing application site, chatting with Kate, going to Colonnades with the girls to get a salad, and listening to Lora read the fairly graphic reproduction chapter of the Health textbook aloud because the euphemisms amuse her. I go to bed around 2, which is still comparatively early for me.
The next day:
7:15—I wake up to Lora’s alarm clock. I say “Wake up, Lora!” after it has gone off twelve times, except that because I’m groggy and have my retainers in it probably sounds more like “ake UMPSH, Lormumble.” Obviously, she eventually does because I hear a lot of noise; I am not paying attention because sleeping is more important.
8:30—My alarm goes off. I turn it off.
9:07—I wake up. Keep in mind that these past two times are according to my clock, which is 16 minutes fast and gaining on me every day. So this is really 8:51ish.
9:11—I make myself get out of bed, and then make the bed so I can’t get back in it. Then I put in my contacts and check facebook, email, TIME, CNN, e-net, and RealSimple. I know, I know, I’m pathetic. Oh, well.
9:13—Lora comes back in with her ginormous, 234235235 pound backpack. I am puzzled, because her class is not supposed to get out until 9:30, but then I remember that it is, in fact, the first day of health and her teacher is way more lax than mine. I am still in my pajamas and still kinda not ready to be awake, so mainly I listen to Lora talk about whatever for a few minutes while I nod and say “mhmmmm.”
9:20—Lora and the backpack leave again. I go take a shower. I even shave my legs. The world should be very proud. Then I get dressed and brush my teeth and stuff, and then I finish my health homework.
10:42—Get a text from Kate asking if now is my lunch break. Yes. Get another asking if I want to meet her and some friends at Colonnades at 11. Yes.
10:55—I think it might be colder today than yesterday.
11:00—Meet up with Kate; we go upstairs. They aren’t quite ready to serve yet, but the lady lets us go sit down at one of the tables. I like that lady.
11:05—Kristen number one calls Kate; she is here. This Kristen graduated with Kate; she seems quiet, but quite friendly.
11:06—Kristen number two calls Kate; she is here. I have met this Kristen before. This Kristen’s drive to do everything on earth (she has it planned out to where she’s living while she gets her PhD) scares me a little. And makes me tired for her. But she’s nice too.
11:08—Colonnades officially opens, and even though there’s a line, the nice lady lets us slide our cards through first.
11:55—Lunch, which has been fun and conversational (and plus I was texting Mama the whole time) ends, because Kate has a 12:15.
12:03—I’m back at the dorm. And I am starting to be very nervous about this American Lit class. It’s supposed to be a real humdinger.
12:05—I start writing letters.
12:50—Being that I’ve mostly been YouTubing and not letter-writing, I decide that I’ll write the letters later.
12:55—I blog about Ivy’s sweater, and then play around to see if I can get the pictures right until I have to go to class.
1:30—I leave for class.
1:35—My teacher is a youngish black woman with a very loud voice. I was expecting a white woman in her 60s with short hair. Why, I don’t know.
1:38—I decide that some of her mannerisms are going to be annoying.
1:45—So is the constant noise from the window. I’m not sure if it’s the wind or the final construction on Lindner Hall, but it’s going to drive me out of my mind.
1:52—However, if that happens, I’ll be in great company—half the authors we study in this class were kinda crazy, from Poe to Fitzgerald to Plath.
2:20—Is she really showing us a clip from a Star Trek episode to illustrate the importance of references?
2:22—Yes. Yes, she is.
2:30—I am scared of the workload in this class. And of the midterm, and of the identifications, and of groupwork in a class where I don’t know ANYBODY and I think I’m the only freshman, and of how hard she’ll grade.
2:45—I give myself a mental pep talk. It kinda works.
3:10—She lets us out early. The pep talk works even better on myself when I’m not in class.
3:20—Back to the dorm. It is cold outside. I have no official work, so I check out the syllabus and talk to Lora and eat a few Pringles and do nothing.
5:00—I message Mama back and forth on facebook a couple times, and keep messing with my Ivy blog. The pictures just won’t get right. Well, I guess it doesn’t matter all that much.
5:27—Realize I have to go to class. Sigh. Put on coat.
5:28—Run into McMichael, praying it will be warm. It is. I decide that McMichael is the only warm building on this entire icy campus. Next I find the classroom I accidentally walked into yesterday, room 207. This time it’s the right room. And it’s…spacey.
5:42—Realize that my professor clearly wants to have Neil deGrasse Tyson’s children. And therefore she wants us to buy Neil deGrasse Tyson’s book as well as the textbook, neither of which she listed online.
5:43—Realize that I didn’t really want to think about that.
5:44—Realize that this means I need to spend another hundred dollars.
5:45—I do not need to have a realization that I don’t want to pay a hundred dollars. I already know that.
6:00—Professor tells us that if we do feel the need to nod off once in a while during class, that’s not a problem.
6:01—Professor also tells us that she takes it personally and is psychologically hurt by students surfing the web in her class.
6:08—She calls a student “hon,” which is weird because she is not old.
6:11—She lets us know that class is “completely structured,” but also “completely loose and open.”
6:30—She admits that she writes astro-poetry.
6:31—I spend a moment pondering what astro-poetry even is.
6:32—I decide that people who look at the stars for their living are bound to be a little strange.
6:33—She asks my table to define light pollution. I am amazed that I am the only one at my table who has ever heard of light pollution. They catch on quickly, however.
6:35—I realize that the way Moreau talks reminds me of Sarah Palin.
6:36—So do her bangs and her glasses.
6:37—I wait for her to say “You betcha!”
6:58—I turn in the diagnostic test we had to fill out and depart. She didn’t say it. Darn.
7:00—The icy cold arctic wind from Canada (thank you, Vanessa Huxtable) hits me like a ton of bricks the minute I get outside the door. I button up my very top coat button so I look like a minister and then bolt to Moseley. And eat Chik-Fil-A and check my mail and then run all the way to the dorm because I think my ears, nose, and fingers are all frostbitten.
That just about wraps up my first two days.
And that was probably quite a pointless post.
Here’s my schedule:
Monday:
1:40-3:20—American Lit. This is going to be a lot of work, and really hard.
5:30-7:10—Astronomy. Not too bad, but I foresee busywork.
Tuesday:
8:00-9:40—Sociology. I’ll like it, but it’s going to mean some work.
10:30-12:10—Nature of Science. It’s honors, so it won’t be easy, but I have it pegged for being more dull than difficult.
12:25-2:05—Health and Wellness. Easy, but do I really have to?
6-10—Astronomy lab. That’s right: four hours, in the cold, at night.
Wednesday: Same as Monday
Thursday: Same as Tuesday but with no lab.
Friday: FREE!!!
That’s about it. I kinda miss first semester. Ah, well.
