First Day, Back to the Basics

Today, a new dawn. Matt Dineen, man of infinite energy, dragged my ass up at the crack of dawn (okay, 8:30am, but hey, I've been unemployed the last year!), and we went down to the Gym of the People, Planet Fitness. It was nice, especially since I'd gotten off the gym kick the last two months when I started doing my crazy roadtrip routine. We usually do a half hour of cardio on the elliptical machines, and another half hour of track training (lifting at various machines) and giving teenagers the stink eye when they jump in front of us on the course.

Onward, to the Shoe to look for my car keys. (No luck). Still, being the first person to visit the Shoe after the hurricane was somewhat reassuring. After putting in an order some of my school books at ye ol' Shoe, I headed onto Temple for my first day back...

Kind of a strange feeling, stepping back onto the campus. For one, it really hit me how many kids there were, which I never noticed back when I was undergraduate. Amist 18 or 19 year olds walking around, I suddenly wondered, what was I getting myself into? Was I trying to relieve a past that was forever gone, in my student days? Am I just fresh out of options, so going back to the school the territory of a desperate fool?

Well, I felt a little better after settling into my reading on the hill behind the library where I took many a nap back in the day. And pretty soon, a new aquaintance, Johanna, who is also in grad school (for art education), came by (I was buying her new zine) and we talked about being older students for a while. Also, a mutual hatred of kombucha and banana whips. And fellow Octopi Beth came by, and I knew:

Anyways, after biking back down to Center City, I nervously dicked around before class started. My first grad class, "Race, Class, and the Immigrant Experience", turned out to be decent. We watched a documentary on the Japanese internment camps and had a nice discussion on whether to compare anti-Muslim hysteria.

Also, the professor said to edit the papers we turn in, because she will not grade papers with typos. Eeek. And attendance is mandatory. Okay, I can deal. And there will be a 50 page paper at the end. Wow.

Well, welcome to grad school, James. This is what you signed up for.

I feel pretty good about it. I feel ready to rock n roll with it.

...

Phillies report: They won again. 85 wins, and it's still just August. I want another parade.