the coolest kid on campus

Monday - the first day of my senior year of college. I flounced across the dewy academic quad in my new dress, backpack stocked with new pens, waving excitedly at all my old college chums I hadn't seen since my semester in New Zealand. (Okay, that last sentence is a lie. I didn't actually see anybody I knew. Somehow 80% of the student body look like freshmen this year. But so do I, so that's not saying much.)

I hurried into the grand old stone castle of the humanities departments to be a fashionable 5 minutes early for my poetry class. I sat down on a bench next to a dumpy girl in sweatpants and glasses.

"Are you here for Spanish class?" she asked.

I glanced at her and shook my head. Why was she waiting outside of the classroom for modernist poetry? Weirdo. A student walked into the room and I jumped up to catch the door before it shut.

I sat down at a chair in the middle of the room and looked around. I knew a couple people there. My roommate Libby was supposed to be in this class, but she wasn't there yet. More kids filtered in. A couple political science majors. A girl who'd once thrown up on the cross-country team's couch. A kid in a flat-brimmed hat. The dumpy girl from the bench. Where were the ironic square-framed glasses? Where were the leather messenger bags? This was all wrong.

I opened my planner. The numbers didn't jive with the numbers on the door. As quietly as I could, I shut the planner and slid it into my bag. Then I snuck out the door and hurried upstairs into the loving arms of my fellow English students.

I never found out if it was a Spanish class or not.

Coming back to campus is a bit of a shock, mostly because everything has shifted about five feet from from where it used to be: the printers in the library, professor's offices, the dressing at the salad bar. There's an entirely new gym and fitness facility, so I never know exactly where the exercise machines are or how to use them correctly. The English faculty's gotten rid of a bunch of old people and brought in a bunch of new ones. And the library's been reorganized yet again to help people locate numbers in order on a shelf.

Sometimes I find myself wandering around lost trying to remember my mailbox combination, and then some nice person intervenes to ask me how I'm liking my first semester of college.

Very much, thanks.

Besides being a poorly-adjusted upperclassman, I'm also kind of busy. I've got a senior project to work on (details pending), cross country practice every day, a whole bunch of photography supplies to buy, and a digestive system that's still adjusting to the cafeteria food.

Luckily, I found this blog to distract me.

I love this ice-cream-headed man so much I might set him as my desktop background. Or marry him, because what says romance better than an edible face?

Also coming soon - a compendium of Coach Rice quotes and pictures of tie-dye shirts.

Preview: "You all look like you've got tar on your shoes right now. But by the end of the season, you'll be so fast you won't believe it. You know what? I'm going to dip all your shoes in tar and see if it comes off at the end of the season. Right in time for the Conference Championship. Heh, heh."