Back to school
It looks like a lot of work
this semester of school.
Though I’m glad to see a lot
of friends I’ve not seen since before summer.
They make me less scared.
I look over the reading list
and wonder if I can keep up.
Am I up to the challenge of
so much or will I get run over in the shuffle of this academic world.
I’ve also inherited Essence,
the school literary magazine, which scares me even more. Can I deal with the responsibility
of being editor and still keep up my grades.
Everybody I suppose goes
through such self doubt, but having company in my misery doesn’t make me feel
any less frightened, no matter how the old saying goes.
Not at my age anyway.
Other fears haunt me, too,
such as spending money faster than I can obtain it.
The summer job at Two Guys in
New bills replace old bills
as fast as I pay the first ones off.
Sure, other people have money
problems as well, we’re all in the same boat in that regard, except perhaps for
the spoiled rich kids, with whom I have nothing in common anyway.
Yesterday, I spent the day
getting reacquainted with this world, learning a little bit more about myself
and those people I have come to think of as my friends.
I had looked forward to
meeting up with Dr Mollencott again for my English class. But she was
mysteriously absent.
The two students I seem to
connect best with here are Michael Alexander and Roland Perez, though the two
could not be more different from each other than day and night. Yet both are
capable of rocking the foundations of this institution in their own ways.
Another one of my classes had
comic Aaron in it, and the minute he saw me he jumped up, ran to the window and
shouted: “Man the lifeboats, Mr. Christian.”
Our professor caught him mid
announcement and clearly did not approve.
Aaron remained unashamed, and
I saw the glint of summer curling out from the corner of his eyes and knew that
his presence in this class would prove a stimulating challenge, full of mirth,
human and creativity.
We might not learn anything
from our fact-stuffed professor, but we would have loads of fun. Yet the title
of the class was deceptive: Poetry of Physics. The professor clearly intended
to emphasize the last.
The next class and last for
the day intrigued me the most because I always wondered about the relationship
between novels and films. I quickly caught on to the fact that this would be a
harder chore than I thought at first, no mere class of watching films, but
serious study.
If nothing goes too wrong
this year, I might even survive. But it won’t be easy.