First days

Ok, first off…why am I doing a work blog at 8:00 am on a Sunday? Well, everyone else is asleep and I didn’t get a change to make any entries on Thursday or Friday because of ... Meetings! Oh, yea…and I finished up my syllabi for the 3 classes that I am teaching starting tomorrow. Syllabi are a lot of work to put together, but are of utmost importance. I will dedicate tomorrow’s post to them.

Today I want to talk about First Days. For many of you, tomorrow marks the first day of the rest of your life; the first official day of your “adult” life. Scary concept! First days are special to me each year, I have a number of them over the years. Of course there was the First Day that I dropped my DD off at daycare, preschool, pre-K, kindergarten, first grade….FIFTH grade this year. I am not one of those breakdown and start bawling moms…but, I do get teary eyed. I get even more teary eyed as I drive off my DD’s private school campus and see all the moms and dads of seniors out front of the school holding banners and cheering for their senior. In my case I also have a year old…and so I get the joy of being teary eyed all over again.

There have been First Days at new jobs, First Days as a new parent, First Days in graduate school, First Days as a married woman (we just celebrated 15 years last week!!), and my own First Day of college. Every year, I experience First Days at the beginning of each new semester.

Let me tell you from experience how important the first day of college is. Like many of you are contemplating….I skipped mine. Oh yea….mom and dad dropped me off in the dorm, said their good byes, I met my roommate and floor mates…and promptly 2 days later, I got on a plane and headed for St. Louis Missouri to go to some Fort whose name I cannot remember, to visit my then boyfriend who was graduating from boot camp. I was still 17 at the time and of course, I was in LOVE. I never told my parents, only my roommate knew I was going and I had only known her for 2 days. I missed the first 3 days of class…thinking, that it would not matter in the long run as I was near the top of my class in high school. High school was easy so college must be easy as well.

I got back on Sunday for classes Monday. Not only did I miss a number of great First Week parties that my friends were gushing about, over the next 2 weeks, I realized that I was falling behind quickly. I still remember my schedule –Honors Chemistry I, Calculus 2, History to 1877 and Psychology. I figured that History and Psychology were going to be a breeze (and they were, other than the 15 or so large paper back books we were supposed to read for History…like one a week, I think I stopped after 2 and still made a B+). Honors Chemistry and Calculus 2, well, they were kicking my butt. Especially that Calculus. I never stressed about a class so much. It is also the only class where I actually called the professor at home (he gave us the number) to find out my grade. I made my first C ever. Let’s just say my high school GPA of 3.5 dropped to just barely over a 3.0 (B+ in Chem, A in Psych, C in Cal 2 and B+ in history). I was in SHOCK.

However, this is typical. Freshmen have to adjust to their new life, their new responsibilities and their new found freedom. Most freshmen do see drops in their grades. It is normal, even if it is a blow to your ego. I learned from that experience and rarely missed any class at all after that first semester (except I did miss the max allowed the following semester when I was an idiot and took Chem 2 lab on a SATURDAY!).
My point in this is that First Days are important. They mark special milestones in your life. But, they also help you get a good start on what you are doing. They help you know what the rules and expectations are. They are something that you shouldn’t skip. I hope your First First Day at college is special and memorable. Good LUCK!!!

Oh, and for the record, I was so “in love” that we broke up before the end of the semester. College was my life and he wasn’t a part of that. Good thing, he ended up going to Iraq War 1 and returning with a number of demons (in addition to other demons in his life before he went), becoming an alcoholic and eventually taking his own life under tragic circumstances. :-(