the first day of school

Yesterday marked my first day back in school. Everything seems so surreal and comical - an episode of Saved by the Bell unfolding in real life. As is requisite for the first day of anything important, the alarm did not go off. Luckily, I was OK with time and showed up to the lecture hall a good 10 minutes before the class was starting.

It was packed with what I can only describe as members of the Lollipop Guild running around well, like munchkins (note that as soon as I wrote munchkins, I thought, hmm ... I could really go for a donut right now). The class overflowed with young and overeager pre-med campers. I looked around to see if I could catch the frightened eye of another post-bac candidate with no luck.

The professor is a short British man with a Santa Claus belly. He seems nice, and aloof in only the way the Brits know how. He was playing a movement from Mozart's Magic Flute on full blast (Rock on!) before class. I totally forgot about the utter bizareness of academia. A parallel universe, where the real world and all of the events taking place in it are left in never-never land. Anybody read the paper this morning? How 'bout those Knicks? Nada.

But class was class. Lots of administrative announcements, then we started Organic Chem 101. Very basic stuff on Day 1 ... slow enough that I could follow along at least. Some inevitably annoying things happened which I must recount.

1) Quite a few cell phones went off in lecture. Seriously people. How rude.

2) In the middle of class, the professor put up a few organic compounds, as a way to say "lookie here, this stuff DOES apply in real life!" He showed us DNA, glucose etc. One compound was labeled "ethylene glycol" which he proceeded to tell us is anti-freeze.

A girl raised her hand. She asked "Professor, if it's ethylene glycol shouldn't there be a double bond on the second carbon?" Oy vey. Here we go. The memories of overeager undergrads flooded my mind. Images of students scrambling to write every last word the professor uttered flashed before me. Lo and behold ... the anal pre-med ... in its natural habitat. An interesting animal. DO NOT FEED. It only adds to their obsessive-compulsiveness. Dorkus abundus.

3) Class is scheduled to end at 10:30. The Professor was still talking, but at 10:30 people started shuffling papers and packing their bags. I repeat, seriously people, how rude.

So that's school. The rosy picture I had painted in my head while I was working (because you know, the grass is always greener) has expediently disappeared. In its place lies the reality that I need to study and make sure I understand this stuff. That's it. I will not memorize the textbook or even write down what the professor says.

The thing is, after working, you pick up some pretty damn helpful skills. These include time management, making do with inadquate information and remaining calm in most all situations. In class, they provide you with study guides. They tell you what to read, and when, and then they explain it to you. Seems pretty generous to me ...

All in all, I'm not loving it but I realize this is all a process to prepare myself for Big Life Change. Plus, the time exists for me. I study for myself, and that feels good.

I am sharing an apartment with another girl who is an undergraduate. She arrived last night, and we chatted briefly. I told her about my day and how I was hoping to meet other post-bac students. I told her it was harder than I thought because I really couldn't tell if people were "older" or not. My story concluded with "I guess I should have expected that, since in my jeans and tee-shirt I look pretty young as well."

Her response? "Oh no, you look pretty old." Thanks. Biatch.


PS: Harvard Square was closed off for a while yesterday, and fire trucks and police cars surrounded the Holyoke Center. I saw a guy in a bomb-proof suit (is there such thing?) go inside. Apparently there was a mysterious package or some other such offense. But for those of you fellow Crimson Alumni ... Holyoke Center? Heh, yeah right. Because UHS is the center of the axis of evil.