Let the Games Begin!

Today I entered into the den of wolves.
Today I journeyed forth into the treacherous wilds.
Today I returned to the Gladiator's Arena.
Today I entered into the modern world's equivalent of the Hunger Games.
Today... Today I started my sophomore year of college... 

Alright, fine, that might be a little too melodramatic way of putting it, but it sounded pretty neat in my head.

In all seriousness though, I really did give up the glorious freedom of the summer in order to don once again the shackles of time devouring academia for ultimate good of my intellectual prowess.

This morning I arose, not before the sun began its daily arc across the sky, but significantly earlier than I would arise on a typical day during the summer blessed months of the year. Thankfully I had been granted the brilliant foresight to go to bed significantly earlier than I typically would have on a summer blessed night. As a result I was more refreshed than I otherwise would have been but as I flopped out of my haystack and shuffled around my room of rest I couldn't help be feel like it was a cruel fact of life that one must ever leave their pillow and blanket to face the world at large.

Upon donning apparel appropriate for the public and one assisting with the instruction of a math I ascended the great climb out of the depths of my parent's cellar and up into the greater portion of my Clan Patriarch's mansion. At the top of the stairs I acquired a box of nutritious and delicious morning sustenance from the shelf of glorious cereals and combined this most amazing of food items with some milk from a land other than Canaan in order to complete the daily ritual of fast breaking.  

After fueling my inner furnace of the morning I felt slightly more prepared to tackle the trials of my day and began to hunt down the last minute materials I needed in order to properly stock my survival pack. It already contained nine some books of educational text which was only possible because the dearest of Clan Matriarchs had acquired for her Sonny-Jim a survival pack of the rolling nature so that my already crooked back would not be completely and utterly shattered and obliterated beyond recognition. These days my pack is able to contain, not only all of my books of educational text, but my THREE calculators (mhm mhm), all of my utensils for the writing and recording of words and numbers, and also my sustenance for duration of the day.

Because my afore mentioned Matriarch doth love her eldest living at home son so dearly she had acquired many a snack item for me over the last few weeks and I had quite a selection of munchings and crunchings to choose from in order to supplement the taco soup I figured I would not have a chance to eat until late in the day. As it turned out, the munchings and crunchings of a snack nature were the only thing that prevented my internal furnace from imploding in such a manner that my entire essence would have collapsed in upon itself.

More on that later.

Eventually both my father, my Patriarch, and the Sister of the Organ were ready to depart with my Patriarch taking mine sister to the place of the Great Patriarch so that she would be able to practice upon the Organic musical device there. I got dropped off at the educational facility that I kind of call home during those months of the year reserved for learning.

I arrived with approximately an hour and a half before my first brainwashing session. ("Why did he wake up so early then?" you might ask. To that I would answer "Good Question.") Because of my early arrival I decided I would be among those who are punctual and I would go print out all of my syllabi for the semester. This turned out to be a much greater challenge then it probably should have been; partly because every other student on campus seemed to have the same idea.

I delved down deep into the dark depths of the destitute and decrepit building (it actually isn't that bad at all) that I spend most of my time in in order to access the only computer lab under that particular facility's protection. Sadly, not only were there about a bajillion other students all trying to frantically print things off before rushing off their classes that had started ten minutes previously but ALL FOUR printers in said room were acting oddly. Two were not receiving half the print jobs sent to them, one started printing the same five sheets of paper over and over again in a loop, and one started jamming every three pages.

After one attempt at getting my syllabi out of one of those printers I said myself I said "Nick my man. This is madness, pure madness." and I left that place. I then said myself I said "Nick, are we not a resourceful and creative type of individual? Do we not have connections within this building of higher learning? Do we not fight until we have won? Can we really let these printers' mockery of us defeat us?" to which I responded "No myself, we cannot let that happen. Let us use all the skillz and intellects we have gained from our time here to remedy this situation."

I quickly sprinted up four flights of stairs (actually I took the large box of up and down transportation) and made my way through the maze of sleepy looking professors Math Center of Tutorial Education that I call a home of sorts. For those of you that might not be aware, I am one of those self sacrificing souls who are willing to give up their spare time for the sake of assisting the mathematically handicapped with the trials placed upon them by their cruel professors. I do this, of course, purely for the sake of being a generous and caring individual who wishes to assist and care for his fellow students... and also because I get paid for it.

Anyway, I happened to recall quite triumphantly that there was a printer within the tutoring center that I could make use of, and because absolutely no one comes to the tutoring center on the first day of classes I felt fairly confident that I would not have to compete with any frantic biology or nursing students to use it. Alas, upon getting myself situated at the computer in the tutoring center my boss, henceforth know as Captain Kirk, informed me that the printer in the tutoring center was no longer working.

Tragedy.
Heartbreak.
The very fabric of time and the universe ripping apart in remorse. 

I had been defeated after all. I had called in every neuron and source of brainpower I could muster in order to come up with the Tutoring Center plan. What was I to do? What could I do? Walk three minutes across campus and use the computers in another building? Ridiculous I say. Ain't nobody got time fo' dat!

Was this the end? Had I lost before I had even begun? Was their any hope for me without my syllabi? Yes, yes there was. It came in the form of my marvelous boss Captain Kirk.

The Captain didst propose to my poor and defeated soul as I lay broken and whimpering in a corner of the tutoring center that if I emailed him the documents I needed he could print them off for me using the faculty printer!  Suddenly all did not seem so terrible after all. A light at the end of the tunnel was actually in sight. Once again hope and joy began to fill my life. Everything was going to be alright. I would live, and the very fabric of time and the universe would not need to rip apart in remorse!

Captain Kirk made good on his offer and I was able to proudly strut off to my first class with plenty of time left to spare. Slightly giddy with my success I accidentally sat down in the classroom for my last class of the day but thankfully A) the professor who was actually teaching that class came in early and let me know I was in the wrong place B) that kind of thing happens a lot the first week of classes and no one judged me but myself and C) all three of my classes on Monday and Wednesdays are within thirty feet of each other. Neat huh?

So I just skipped across the hall to my actually correct classroom even if I had been sobered a bit from that embarrassing episode. Within the walls of the actually correct classroom I was reunited with my fellow Honors Student and school friend the Queen of the Cakepop people. The Queen and I had been in communication over the summer and she had what is now my third calculator for me to purchase form her at a greatly reduced price. I knew she was going to be there but I was surprised to see that Serra the Smelter, another fellow Honors Student was also taking the class with us.

I didn't know anyone else there and therefore didn't care about them...

Shortly after entering the classroom my professor, who has a wicked awesome accent that is apparently that of an East Coast person, entered the room and began to impart knowledge upon us in the form of mathematical factoids. As is pretty typical, our learning for the first was pretty limited and mostly devoted to the learning of her syllabus and the names of those students that surrounded us. I was designated three classmates to babysit, er, work with and thus I came to actually care about their existence and learn their names. Their faces rose out of the sea of nameless individuals I must dodge to reach my class and formed into actual people.

You can tell I am not education or social work major because talking about other humans like that would earn me an automatic F on my degree.

Anywho, my first class passed without any incidents of terribleness and I was able to traverse the thirty feet between my classrooms with ease. Unfortunately, since I lined up all of my responsibilities on Mondays to be back to back I had no time to really eat and it was at this time approaching the hour typically dedicated to munching and crunching for me. I inhaled a few cracker sandwich snacks courtesy of my beloved and life saving Matriarch in order to hold me over or another seventy five minutes and sat down for my class on Verbal Communication in Front of Other People aka Speech Class.

Talking in front of people has never been something that I have struggled with (actually it has been kind of the opposite problem), so when you hear about that student who gets physical ill from nervousness during speech class you are not hearing about me. You are hearing about seventy-five percent of my class. (No one got sick. Do not panic.)

My teacher turned out to be a very enthusiastic woman determined to make sure we all understood that we would survive her class. Apparently she has a perfect track record and not a single student has died in her class. I haven't investigated closely but I'm not sure many of my other professors could make the same claim. Needless to say, I was impressed with her mad skillz and I think the class will end up going very smoothly as long as I don't accidentally go overtime on each and every one of my speeches. My ultimate goal, because I am an overachiever, is to ascend to the glorious Speech Night Finals and win the award for best Persuasive Speech of the semester. I have some tough competition though from yet another fellow Honors Student who signed up for the same Speech Class as me without my knowing and whom I will affectionately call the Loud Honors Student or "The Loud One." By her name you might guess that she also lacks a fear of talking in front of people and will probably be might top competitor in the vicious fight to be the best public speaker of the semester.

Good luck Loud One. May the odds be ever in your favor.

After that class I would have loved to eat an actual lunch but instead I inhaled a few more crackers and dashed up two flights of stairs (actually I rode in the box again, but don't judge. It is hard to dash up stairs with a rolling survival pack). I said I have three classes on Mondays and that is the certifiable truth but I actually attend four because I am helping to teach one! For whatever reason Captain Kirk thought it would actually be a good idea to have me to serve as an SI (Supplemental Instructor or Super Intelligentone. Your pick.) in his college algebra class.

So I sat there and mostly listened to him go over the syllabus for the first day, although I did answer a few questions and introduce myself, while wishing that I was eating many of the foods. Once we had suitably covered the contents of the syllabus and gotten to know everyone in the class a bit (I found out that Captain Kirk plays the same video games as I) we learned about functions and were kicked out the door so the next class could take place.

Did I get to eat food at that point? No. No I did not.

Instead I got to go to my last class of the day on Visual Literacy which is classified as a Journalism class. Once again I discovered that a previous classmate, although not an Honors one, was in the same class as me and I was briefly reunited with Miss Whovian before our class got underway. My professor turns out to actually be a journalist who works for the local news station and maintains their website so I decided he was probably pretty legit and that I could trust him at least a little bit.

Fort our first class he actually didn't waste time reading the syllabus to us and started teaching (I didn't realize that was allowed...) and we spent most of the class and looking at different images while he kind of gave an overview of the different kinds of theories and topics about photos and pictures we would be covering in the class. The biggest thing that he stressed was that, as journalists, you should never attempt to alter your image or stage your photo in such a way that is portrays a particular opinion. He says it happens all the time, but the goal should be to simply record and report with your images and not use them to portray a particular side of a story. I found that to be rather interesting and I kinda look forward to that class more than I thought I would.

After that I was done. It was eight and a half hours since I had arrived on campus and nine and a half hours since I had last eaten anything of substance. I had not been outside since I got to school. I practically flew to the microwave where I heated to an appropriate temperature the taco soup that I had brought for my lunch (lolz!) and devoured it with relish as I looked back upon how my day had gone thus far.

Despite being hungry for most of it and despite the stupid printer issue I was actually feeling pretty content. I had been nervous about the four classes a day thing, but after getting a glimpse at my Monday/Wednesday classes I don't think it will be a problem, especially since I am assisting and not actually taking one of them. Getting back into the school mindset wasn't as hard as I had feared and I'm now really getting kind of hyped for the rest of the semester.

Summer was great, amazing actually, but I'm ready to take up my vocation again. IUSB grew on me a lot more than I had thought and in some ways it felt like I was coming back home this morning. Sure there are people and ideas there that irritate me, but sometimes the people and their ideas back at my real home can irritate me as well. (Sorry sibs, but you are my sibs.)

I made it through one day and I know that, by the Grace of God, I will make it through the next four months and will actually do pretty well. It will be a long haul but I'm looking forward to the challenge and hoping to get a lot out of it. When it is over I will be 18 credits closer to graduation and will have had another life lesson in learning how to work and manage one's time.

Now, while I hope you all enjoyed my attempt at making a first day back at school sound entertaining, it is time for me to prepare my survival kit for another long day tomorrow and return my hatstack for another night.

Thanks for reading.

Pax.