My first day of school

I survived my first day of school! Actually, it was very good - quite interesting, and I already feel like I learned something, which is an improvement over many first-day classes I had as an undergrad. It was sort of odd actually sitting in a class and talking about things that were immediately relevant to my career; it felt more like a professional development seminar than a college class. I mean, I have a liberal arts degree, and I do think that's valuable in many ways, but honestly - I took a lot of weird electives that aren't really that pertinent at this point in my life. I actually took a few classes that were so irrelevant, I kind of don't remember them that well. (I just now remembered I took some kind of basic sociology class...and I know I got an A in it and I vaguely remember talking about Karl Marx.) So my point is that it was refreshing to be learning things I know I will actually use other than in a game of Trivial Pursuit.

I was very nervous yesterday about starting school. I've been nervous all week, actually, but I was really nervous yesterday. I was really paranoid about oversleeping and being late, with the result that I hardly slept. At one point, I was so sure my clock was broken - stuck at 4:45 AM - that I actually got out of bed and looked at my watch AND my cell phone. They all said 4:45, so the problem was just that I couldn't sleep. I finally gave up and got out of bed at 6:40.

In a way, it was a very funny echo of the other first days of school from my past...I wore my favorite t-shirt, and I carefully packed all my school supplies in my new bag, and I was happy about having new pens. The big difference is that I'm much more willing to talk to new people now than I ever was during old school days, so I actually got to know a few of the people from my class a bit.

I think this is going to be a really good thing. A lot of work, but good. I'm feeling much better now that day one is over. I have a paper due in two weeks and four more chapters of the book to read, but I'm taking tonight off!