The Dreaded First Day(s)

On Monday, I participated in one of the most dreaded days for all students and possibly teachers: the first day of class.  For those of us that go to schools with classes that vary day to day, we get to experience a "first day" twice.  Lucky us.  Usually when nearing my first day(s) of classes, I like to get completely prepared several days in advance.  I'm that person that goes out and buys/rents all the required books, gets new notebooks, and organizes everything.  I will go online and read through the class syllabus even though there is an entire first day dedicated to this.  It is my way of feeling ready when I start the semester to get, what I convince myself is, a head start.  Yet every semester, I still have some kind of anxiety about the first day(s) of class.  I get nervous about everything: not waking up on time, not remembering what I learned last semester, not knowing anyone in class, or worse sitting by someone stinky and then finding out those are now our assigned seats (It's happened before..many times).  

This semester however, things were different.  For some reason, I forgot to feel any kind of anxiousness about beginning classes.  I honestly wasn't thinking about it at all.  I rented my books and bought my notebooks the day before class started (still sooner than most people, I know).  This could all possibly be due to the fact that for the first time ever, I do not have 8 am class.  Instead, I start at 2:00pm on Mondays.  Woohoo! So Monday morning I woke up at 8:30 ready for the day.. and then had 5.5 hours to kill.  I used my morning to be extremely productive; watching tv, getting my nails done, and snuggling my dogs.  You really can't beat it.  I packed my bag 5 minutes before running out the door and then headed to school.  

I got to class a little early, so like the true creeper that I am, I went online and looked over each class' class-list.  I was excited to see that I knew someone in every one of my classes, which of course meant no stinky strangers sitting next to me.  My first class was with one of my favorite teachers, so I was very excited.  He is hilarious!  However, my favorite teacher really let me down this time.. he let our hour and 15 minute class out 45 minutes early.  For most people, this would be extremely exciting.  The problem was that it was 2:30 and my next class was not until 4.  I once again was going to be killing time, but this time I was forced to do so at school.  Lucky for me, one of my friends was on break as well.  As you'll notice, I remembered to mention that I had class at 4.  Well yesterday, I forgot all about it.  

At 3:58 I suddenly found myself sitting alone in the break room.  The passing period had ended and everyone else had gone to their classes.  That's when it dawned on me: aren't I supposed to be somewhere? I grabbed everything and ran up three flights of stairs to get to my class just on time.  For anyone who knows me, three flights of stairs is a lot in my eyes.  Walking from class to class is my only workout.  Because of this, I came into class like a mess: stuff going everywhere, completely out of breath, and totally disheveled.  What a perfect first impression.  After this class, I only had 30 minutes to wait until my last class of the day, well night at this point.  My last class doesn't finish until after 8 at night.  I'm really not sure if I'll ever get used to this schedule.  

Today was a bit better of a day, probably because I decided to be a more mentally prepared.  I started class at 9:30 and finished at 1:45, completing 3 really interesting classes.  I went into the first day dreading it and completely not ready.  However, my second-first day, I decided to approach it with an entirely different attitude.  Today I was excited, remembered everything, got the best seat in each class, and made multiple new friends.  So maybe the trick is not getting the class times I want or being overly prepared, but instead it is to have a good attitude.  I think that is something we can all remember to do a little more often when getting ready for those dreaded first days.  

Things I'm feeling thankful for this semester:
1.  No class on Fridays
2.  Late start on Mondays and Wednesdays means extra sleep and homework time
3.  Very interesting classes such as Consumer Marketing, Sports Marketing, and Digital Marketing
4.  Finding out that every class of Sports Marketing will have a speaker, one of which is the owner of the CO Rockies
(how random is that?)
5.  Knowing someone in all 7 of my classes and meeting new friends
6.  Only 2 finals and great groups for those awful group projects
7.  The opportunity to be taught by a professor from India who will provide a completely unique, global perspective to Marketing
8.  Already having a job waiting, and therefore wayyy less stress
9.  Knowing that the completion of this semester means graduation, which means having tons of my family come visit me in MKE
10.  Finding out that during finals week, there will be stress-relieving-puppies
 provided for us to cuddle at any time