People have nightmares like my reality.
Students day dream these actual disasters.
Tonight my first evening of classes was scheduled to start. I guess I took too long of a break because I definitely have gotten a bit rusty in the whole campus-life game. To be fair to myself the entire night was not entirely my fault and I took affirmative action so as not to sit idly by and watch life pass. In any case, I will begin with my first failure as a returning graduate student.
For the past two years all of my writing classes have been in one building on DePaul’s campus-- but for the life of me I could not remember its name and didn’t look it up because my internet has been being a bitch lately. So, as usual I began walking the typical way to my writing classes feeling in my soul that this was the wrong direction and the way I was going was not going to lead me to where I needed to be.
I got in front of the usual writing classes building hoping that it would be the building I needed, Byrne Hall, to discover that I was of course, wrong and I was standing in front of McGaw Hall, duh. It all came back to me. Byrne Hall is where I used to have all of my Women and Gender Studies classes so I was just assbackwards starting out the term. Yay me.
I then rushed to the other side of campus (which made me almost pee my pants in anxiety)
Upon entering the almost full classroom all heads turned back to look at me. Awkward. Then they turned away quickly so as to not make any eye contact. I found the one left-handed desk in the room still empty (wohoo) and took my seat in the very quiet almost-meditatively nervous room. We sat there in silence FOREVER. People started looking at each other. One person even asked another a question. 20 minutes in and I knew that we were not getting a professor. I went to the front of the room, asking along the way if anyone had a i-phone so they could look online instead of me. No one volunteered.
Then they all stared at me as I attempted to figure out what had gone wrong. I checked my email. Nothing. I checked campus connect. We were all where we were supposed to be….except of course the professor. I even tried to call Sirles on my cell phone that had no service…double awkward—not only were all the students staring at me, but I had to have a static-filled conversation with the head of the Writing Department.
Unable to connect with Sirles. I attempted calling back on the land-line phone hanging on the wall. This is the nightmare moment. The moment where you’re basically standing up in front of everyone naked (which I would have actually rather done to tell you the truth) because I couldn’t figure out how to dial out. I tried every possible combination, but to no avail. I failed.
I gave up and someone else called him—where she of course accomplished the goal.
Class was canceled. The professor neglected to send out an email to let us know and no one put signs up on the door.
What a great way to start my final year of graduate school, acting, looking and feeling like a total idiot. I wasted my time, my money and my dignity (that f-ing wall phone I shake my fist at you) Oh well. I hope I can just dust this one off and move on to bigger and better experiences—like learning something.
Maybe even if it's only how to use technology to my advantage...
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