Because I Don't Have a Trapper Keeper

I started school on Monday. I gathered up my kitten Trapper Keeper and my Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers lunch box, got in my carpool, and headed up to Stillwater to sit at the front of the classroom like a good little girl and soak in knowledge. Actually, I went to work for the morning and then caught my carpool up to Stillwater with my highlighters, colored pens, three-ring binder and college-rule notebook in my monogrammed shoulder bag (thanks, Karen!) and completely forgot to eat lunch. Oy.

 

The joy of college these days (and by the time I finished my previous degrees) is that your professors can have their syllabus available to you before the semester begins through the Online Classroom, some are called Blackboard, functions in use at most colleges and universities. One of my professors took advantage of this, so I had my syllabus for my second class. I had a chance to glance over it and see that it looked much like a normal class--intermittent writing assignments and one larger group project. Reading each week. Class discussion. Standard stuff. My first class, however, would be an unknown.

 

We arrived a few minutes early to class and the chairs quickly began filling in the small-ish seminar room. The class is essentially full with 14 students and the professor. I will not say much because I do not wish to put too many opinions out here on the interwebs, but I don't know that I'll be a big fan of this class. It's not the workload--the reading load is not unmanageable, the writing assignments are surprisingly small, but we have readings on reserve. In the library. I am a commuter student. In fact, our first reserve readings were not available when myself and my carpool buddies went after class to retrieve them. Some library snafu occurred, causing them to not be present in the reserve room. So, this week we have been tracking down copies of the books closer to home to use. Not a fun prospect. We shall see how the rest of the semester goes. I do believe that many of the other reserve readings are actually on electronic reserve, so hopefully this problem will not occur again. And really, I hope that the library can pull its head out and get the books in the proper locations. I suppose this is my welcome back to graduate work. I've missed you, grad school!!*

 

I have this tendency to write snarky remarks in my notes during class, so I thought I might share some of them with you. Enjoy!

From Class the First:

-My nose will not stop running!

-The professor just compared grad school to weight lifting. It made me feel nerdier.

-Hint: drinking with the professor is acceptable

-Hope and Keep Busy

-Note to self: bookstore irrelevant

-The dude next to me never smiles!

-The professor keeps licking the corner of his mouth like Barty Crouch, Jr. from Harry Potter

-Writing that made me feel nerdier than the mental weightlifting thing.

 

From Class the Second:

-Need to find time to study Lefthanded Lithuanians in Oklahoma City 1919

-"Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield." "I don't know why. It's a perfectly cromulent word."

-An episode of the Simpsons is a great way to end class

-You know that guy in class who takes everything personally and is angry about everything? Yeah, he's in both of my classes.

 

*Despite this little hiccup, I am really excited to be back in class, back on a college campus (even if it is the wrong one--I think I'll get to run around the right one every once in a while to go to the library), and back stretching my brain to its limit. Life's little annoyances keep us on our toes, right? ;-)