do you remember what your first day of high school/college felt like? trust me, i am not about to get nostalgic on your ass, i’m trying to remind you that the day i just mentioned was horrifying.
for reasons too long, complicated, and utterly ridiculous to explain here i’ve been taking classes at every college within a 50 mile radius of my (parent’s) house. it seems as though i’ve been hanging out with the weirdos in community college long enough that, despite the pointless nature of the classes and overall scariness of many of the students involved, i feel quite comfortable among the culinary hobos. i am not, however feeling very confident among the students of the ever prestigious university of west georgia. for starters, i have never felt so incredibly awkward or unprepared in my entire life. i showed up on campus and had no idea where to park, where my class was, where to buy books, where to get a student id, where to get a parking sticker, and in general where the hell i was and what was i doing. being my ever confident (bitchy) self, i simply parked wherever i felt like parking, much like i did at mercer, although with much more positive results. i had a campus map, but i was not about to embarrass myself with a lost freshman stigma, so i studied the map carefully and then began to wander aimlessly around campus using only my excellent (terrible) sense of direction as a guide. in the end, i think the expression “going around your ass to get to your elbow” sums up my building finding skills. my class began at 12 and i walked into the classroom at 11:40, perfect timing, responsible earliness, student shows interest in learning. wrong. the classroom was full and the professor informed me that i was either incredibly late or remarkably early. she made me sit through her other french class and then my french class. they were exactly the same. the obligatory, “tell everyone your name, year and major” created an unnecessary amount of confusion and needless mumbling on my part. i said, “my name is lauren lantz, i’m a senior, i guess, and i’m a communications major”. professor trelawney (nerd reference of course, although in this case, remarkable accurate, her hair was quite unfortunate looking) looked at me and said, “you think you’re a senior? are you in your 4th year?” to which i replied, “no ma’am, i am in my last year”. i’m pretty sure she thought i was retarded, but i wasn’t about to tell the 18 year olds in my class that i’ve been at this shit for 7 years, even i have a limit for amount of endurable humiliation. also, it just so happens that there is no communications major available at this school, thus confirming trelawney’s previous inclination that i am mentally retarded. perfect. the rest of the class was absurd, as trelawney forced students to read the (redundant) syllabus aloud. after class i figured i should ask the professor of french/divination where i could procure a student id and parking sticker. she gave me the most stupid answer i’ve ever heard by saying, “in the ucc”, like i knew that the hell a ucc was. meanwhile, i was mentally calculating the time it would take me to decipher that kind of abbreviation of the microscopic map i hid in my purse, and ultimately decided i would find some kind of attractive mancandy thing to show me where it was at a later date. after her ridiculous answer to my legitimate question, i determined that professor trelawney was dimwitted and marked her off as entirely incompetent. additionally, everyone in my class either has 10 facial piercing or is african american or some combination thereof, which means i either have to get my tongue/eyebrow/lip/nose pierced or log some serious tanning bed time.
in conclusion, bring on the parking tickets, campus security. i still don’t know where the hell to park or where the ucc, whatever that may be/stand for, is. and might i ask where my prefect was for this whole experience? you are certainly no hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry.
