I are a college student. Again.

After a five year hiatus I am now officially 'going back to school'. Yeah me! I guess you could say I was officially 'going back to school' as soon as I paid for classes on Saturday, but today was my actual First Day Back In A Classroom, so now its doubly official.



I'm taking two classes at a local junior college. The World Literature class meets every Tuesday night. The Brit Lit class is during the afternoon on Mondays and Wednesdays. So on these two days I'll be coming in to work early, working four hours, leaving for three hours to go to class, then coming back to work the last four hours. I'll only be leaving work about an hour later than I normally would so its all good in the work 'hood.

That three hour break covers the 30 minutes to get to the school, 30 minutes to find a parking spot, the hour and a half class period, plus 30 minutes to drive back. This afternoon I made the grave error of not factoring in that crucial 30 minute parking lot dance time and boy did I pay for it.

Silly me forgot how crowded parking lots can be on The First Day of Classes. Oy vey was parking a bitch. The classroom I'm in is at the northern most part of the campus. Following Murphy Law Logic can you guess where I eventually had to park? Yep, that's right, I parked on the street (not even in a parking lot!) at the southern most part of the freaking campus (save for the baseball and soccer fields). I also had to park at the very end of this street, so I was on the eastern most edge of the campus as well. :(

Since I only had about 10 minutes until class started I sped walked like a mofo, a mofo I tell ya, and I did it all UPHILL! Freaking campus is built up in the freaking hills for crying out loud! Gah! At least I have a story to tell my children and grandchildren, who will be so used to hover shoes or transporters or some shit that when I talk about walking they'll look at me funny. "In my day I had to walk up a freaking hill to get to class." "Oh Granny, you so silly." This story doesn't top my father's 'walking to school' story though, for he had to walk up a hill both ways to get to school. Ouch.

So I got to class late, all huffy and puffy and stitch-in-the-side-afflicted and a different color than normal. See, if someone were to make an action figure of me it would be called Mrs. Tomato Head because with the slightest bit of exertion my face turns all red. It's always been that way, even when I've been at my utmost fittest (which I haven't been in awhile). I'm just a color-changing-white-girl-chameleon that way. I'm like that when I laugh too, which can be extremely annoying sometimes. I'll be laughing, and I'll turn red, and people will think I'm embarrassed. One particular former coworker used to love to point this out to every one (the bitch) "Oh look, she's so embarrassed she's turning red! Ha ha ha!" This made me turn even redder (exercise, laughing, imagining punching annoying coworker in face --> red face). Stupid hyper color skin.

So anyways, it was a fucking peachy way to start this whole 'Going Back To School' thing but at least the rest of the day has gone pretty well. Except for when I had to walk all the way back to my car, a trek that took almost fifteen minutes. Fifteen freaking minutes! This would have been fine if I had the time to take a leisurely stroll across campus, but my schedule's too tight for that. Bummer.

At least I know now that I have to leave a half hour earlier on Wednesday. I hope that's enough time to find something descent. I wouldn't a little bit of walking, I just don't want to hike in from BFE.

I think I'll pack some running sneakers and shorts just to be on the safe side.

And tomorrow, for my night class, I think I'll head over straight from work, circle the parking lot until I get prime front row parking a mere ten steps away from the classroom building, then chill in the bookstore for a couple of hours, sniffing pencils and rubbing up against the spiffy looking notebooks.