Hey there, everyone,
I hope everyone is doing well and that the cold weather has not escalated too quickly on you. I know it did for me. In any case, today I would like to do a bit of a throwback. I would like to tell the short anecdote of my first day of classes.
The day before, my roommate and I spoke for quite some time, speculating how it would all go. Comments along the lines of “This is college now” found their way into many instances of the conversation. Most of the times, those comments came out of my mouth. I went to sleep at about nine o’clock and set about five separate alarms. “Beat It,” by Michael Jackson, was the ringtone for all of them.
When I woke up, it was about five thirty in the morning. None of my alarms had gone off. Thinking, based on experience, that if I went back to sleep thinking “five more minutes” I would sleep for at least an hour and a half, I jumped off my bed. I showered and got ready to head out of the room. It was only a little after six.
I went to Kimball Dining Hall and ate breakfast with a few other people. I made sure to eat something healthy and drink plenty of water. They were supposed to help with brain performance and whatnot. I decided to leave Kimball at about twenty after eight. My class started at nine.
I arrived to my classroom, peeked through the window, and froze completely. It was almost completely filled. I could only spot one empty chair in the back of the room. I thought, desperately, “That’s my chair.”
Ignoring every bit of common sense I have, I walked into the classroom. Everyone turned their heads and gave me the glance that I was so scared of. “You are late on the first day?” the glances yelled. The professor looked at me briefly, then, without any hesitation, kept reading the syllabus. I sat all the way in the back, on that empty chair.
The professor kept reading the syllabus and mentioned something about international relations. It was then that it clicked. I was in the right room and building, but half an hour too early. I entered the wrong class. I felt awkward in every sense of the word, but I did not dare walk out. I thought it would look rude, so I waited until the end of that class.
I approached the professor after class was over. “I’m sorry for interrupting class,” I said. “My class actually starts at nine. I just got confused.” The professor chuckled. “Okay,” he said before leaving. I then learned that, sometimes, too early can be bad, too. Just something to keep in mind.
