First Day of School... Or Not

As you may have noticed (but admittedly probably haven't, because you are all busy people with successful careers and families and hobbies and lives), I've been a lazy bum about blogging recently.  In an effort to rectify this situation, and no doubt improve all of your busy, successful lives by at least .0037%*, I'm going to do something I don't usually do here on my cozy square foot of Internet:  I'm going to tell you about my day.

Today was supposed to be the first day of classes.  I guess I sort of knew, over the course of the summer, that school was looming somewhere in the distance, but I was working 40 hours a week at my ridiculously cool summer job, and had forgotten about all of the prep that was necessary.  I needed a parking pass, textbooks, and probably notebooks and pencils.  I also had to unearth my backpack from the archaeological site my room had become.

I waited in line for about an hour yesterday with all the other lazy college bums who waited until the day before class to pick up their parking permits.  I woke up at six this morning and didn't hit the snooze button.  I yanked my backpack out of a mountain of art supplies, then decided all I needed was my laptop.  I put on a brand new pair of contacts, left the house on time and with a full tank of gas, remembered my phone and my wallet and my headphones and my car keys.  I caught the bus and snagged my favorite seat in the back left corner.  I landed on campus a full half-hour before my 8:30 math class.  I swung by my favorite coffee shop and bought the first cappuccino of the year, which earned me the tenth and final punch on my "Java Junkies" card.  I strutted to class with Holy Ghost Tent Revival wailing through my headphones.  I even found my classroom without excessive wandering or hair-pulling.

At this point, I should have been suspicious.  I wasn't.  I poked my head into the classroom.  Empty.  I was fifteen minutes early, so it was plausible that I was the first one there.  Then I looked at the board.

305 canceled

jury duty

I was conflicted.  Was this the cherry on top of my perfect day?  Or the thread that unraveled it all?  Am I excited because my first and only class today is canceled or enraged because I woke up at the butt crack of dawn and burned a gallon of gas to get here?

I'm usually a proponent of the philosophy that no class is better than class.  Period.  And any frustration toward the professor is speedily erased by imagining how his morning has probably been.

So I've decided, sitting back in the coffee shop, listening to the classical music they're playing, overhearing snatches of intellectual conversation at the tables around me, that this development is indeed a positive one.  And while I'm on campus, I can procure textbooks, which I have yet to do.

My aquarium stand landed on my porch yesterday, and now I have everything I need to set up my Atlantis/Pompeii-themed goldfish tank.  I suppose I can do that.  And I should probably clean my room.

But I think I'm going to take a nap first.

*percentage based on a clinical study of females ages 18-35 in Siberia