Ramblings on My First Week of School

Are you aware that we are about halfway through the month of January?  Did you know this?  I just now realized this and I'm thinking to myself, "Damn, Jack.  You haven't written a single blog post this month... heck, even this year!"  I better get on that.

School has started.  Much too quickly, I might add.  I barely had time to breathe after the rush that is Christmas and New Year's before plunging headfirst into another school semester.  I'm taking four classes this year--a full load--and I'm a little worried that I'll kill myself before the semester ends.  Full-time school and full-time work can be challenging.  Although, one of my new classmates was bragging about taking 7 classes last semester all while working full-time as well, so maybe I'm just a baby. 

Or maybe she's just a bragging b****.

Brian hates when I put asterisks in place of swear words.  He's a b**** too.

Anyway, I'm taking a Steinbeck class and I'm pretty excited for it because I've never read him before.  Yes, you heard me right.  I'm an English major who's never even read The Grapes of Wrath.  Somehow I skipped over that in high school, although I do remember falling asleep on my desk while watching the movie.  I had a string of drool connecting my chin to my trapper keeper.  Very embarrassing.  But I'm taking the class now and I'm on the brink of discovering one of America's most celebrated authors, despite what certain literary critics might say.  My classroom smells like an auto body shop though, considering it's in the Sparks Automotive building.  Perhaps it will help me to connect to Steinbeck's down-and-out, working class characters.  Or the fumes might get me high.

I'm also taking a poetry class.  Poetry's not my strong-suit, but we'll see.  The teacher seems interesting, but unfortunately one of the annoying kids in my American Literature class last semester has waddled his way into this poetry class as well.  That's mean of me, isn't it?  Waddled.  Not nice, but he is a bit hefty and penguin-like.  He gets under my skin because he has diarrhea of the mouth and a strong need to be the teacher's pet.  He literally serenades the professor.  Literally.  He sang a whole Gregorian chant for us in class on Thursday and I honestly have no idea why.  It was very strange.  In all honesty though, what bugs me most about him is his confidence.  Because no matter how socially awkward he might be, I'm jealous that he seems to live his life without fear of what others might think.  It's a trait I lack.  You couldn't pay me enough to sing in class, yet here he was, just singing his heart out.

My lack of self-confidence and worry over the opinion of my peers (or my "pride" as Brian calls it) gives me anxiety whenever I'm asked to openly participate in class, and my Rhetoric professor has made it her life-long goal to get students talking about themselves.  I hate talking about myself in class.  Or sharing my opinion.  I don't mind that sort of stuff here, on my blog, where I can't see anybody... but in real life with people I don't know, I'm pretty closed-off.  So that class is going to be an interesting one.  As is my fourth class, Spanish, where I'll not only be required to talk a lot but I'll be asked to talk in my second language.  Woohoo.  Or as they say in Spanish:  el woohoo.

Interesting fun fact about my Spanish class.  It's on Saturday mornings and it apparently started last Saturday and not today.  Oops.  I'm already a week behind!