Unlike many people, I do not benefit from sitting idle.
Having a silly college schedule is normal, though. Last semester I had an average of 7-12 minutes to relocate to the appropriate room on campus to attend my next class. Becoming more and more picky with my current classes, I spend surprisingly much time on campus but very little of that time in actual classrooms. I am on campus Monday to Friday, everyday, with only two classes, except for Fridays, where there is only one.
The Monday, Wednesday and Fridays I can be found in class from 9AM – 9:50AM and from 1PM to 2:15PM (except for Fridays). Tuesdays and Thursdays I start at 8AM to 9:15AM with one more class in the PM from 1PM to 2:15. This gives me plenty of time between classes to study, read, research, interact with fellow students and faculty and deal with all my online stuff.
Yesterday was Monday and my birthday on top of it. A day like any other (no party) I got up at 5AM, had my stuff straight by 6AM and did some work until 8, when it was time to leave for Bangor. Arriving at campus without my wallet was OK, it’s an acceptable oversight to leave it in the wrong jackets pocket. The cafeteria gives me credit, water is free, and there’s no good reason to increase opportunity costs by turning around just to get a wallet.
Having the habit of being early for classes is a good thing. Time to get to know students, have small talks with faculty, getting your stuffs ready and usually it results in me being ready to run when the professor/ instructor hails in. Not so yesterday! As 12:54PM came around, I was confused. The classroom had filled with people I did not know! They must have felt the same, as some of them kept looking at me, oddly. Something was definitely wrong when I discovered that they had different books than me! Could they all be in the wrong classroom? (Remember the wife calling her husband, stating: “Honey, be careful, they are reporting a guy going the wrong way on the interstate!” The husband responded: “Oh hell, really? One??? There’s HUNDREDS!!!”
By 12:55PM I had silently packed up my crap, nonchalantly threw my jacket on and nodded at the strangers, smiling, almost silly, as I left the room. Wrong classroom, wrong building, wrong day of the week, heck, WRONG freaking side of campus!!! I did arrive in the correct classroom where two students instantly noted that I was rather late.
It must be my age, or the silliness of having too many hours of idle time between classes. I dutifully reprinted my schedule, to avoid such incidents in the future. Hope I won’t forget it! Wallet: CHECK. Schedule: CHECK. Pre-takeoff Checklist: COMPLETE. Lets hope we remember where we’re supposed to go…
The day will come when you get up in the morning, walk into your bathroom, and someone looking weird and awful will walk toward you. Then, shortly after the paralysis and the naked fear go away and you have stopped screaming, you will realize that this object is YOU, and you had walked toward the mirror.
After this has happened for the first time, then, my dear, you can join the “Oh-my-god-I-am-getting-old-club”.
I’ve been a member for quite a while now (don’t forget I’m going to turn 43 in a few days!!!), and we all get used to it.
By: Inge Zeitner on January 24, 2012
at 12:27 PM