"a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils"

Today=first day of classes. Syllabus day, my favorite day of the semester (not as in, it's all downhill from here, but as in, this day just rocks). I love having everything all laid out in front of me, putting stickers on the days papers are due, thinking maybe I'll get a 4.0 for once in my life. All fresh pages in my notebooks, brand new teachers.

Class #1 was scintillating. British Literature I, the first of a series of four surveys (the others being Brit Lit II and American Lit I & II). This one starts at "Beowulf" and ends at "Paradise Lost," or at least that's how I understand it. My professor is pretty cool. He must have spoken at least 8 languages during the lecture today. Mostly to illustrate how English is related to other languages, but he made some comment about how Russian words are spelled phonetically, and said something in Russian. A girl in the front row answered him and they had a nice little conversation in Russian before he realized he was still giving a lecture.

Class #2 is entitled "19th and 20the Century Art," or something to that effect. I thought I'd give the field of art history one more chance, even after the fiasco last year with me and Professor Fredrick Cooper (gah). I double checked with Danielle's old roommate, who has taken the class and she said she loved both the professor and the class, and in addition, offered to let me use the flashcards she'd made to prepare for the exams (the part of the 1001 course that took up the most of my time and energy). So that one looks promising.

My last class of the day (after a break for some lunch--chili ramen today. Quite good. Way better than that lime stuff they tried to invent) was creative writing. I got there a couple of minutes late. The lecture part of the class is held in the monstruous lecture halls in Willey, so you'd think there'd be room. But you would be wrong. I came in and found the only seat available to be the floor in the aisle, where I sat for the entire hour and 15 minutes. In a skirt. And I didn't even get my precious syllabus. The lecture itself was good, though. The British professor talked a little bit, then introduced the TAs (12 sections! Oh god!) Six of them got up and read their work. It was fantastic. Some wrote poetry, some wrote essays or other non-fiction. All were wonderful. I recognized Mary Kettle, who Steve persuaded to read one of her humor essays at "Comics for Kerry" last fall. Today she read a piece about cell phones that was hilarious.

In the end, it was a pleasant first day, the only kink being my bus pass situation. Having to pay for transportation to campus while I wait for the stupid U-Card office to run my name through the damn printer is just too much to ask for, I tell you.