George Washington University - Cherry Tree Yearbook (Washington, DC)

Page 29 text:

ONCE AGAIN . . . The alarm rings signaling the beginning of another semester. You roll over in bed, turn it off, and head over to the bathroom to wash the last remnants of summer vacation out of your eyes. Without even realizing what you are doing, you shower, dress, stuff some food into your mouth, grab a pen and an old notebook and head out to your first class in four months. Yes, you once again must enter the world of academia. You seat yourself in the back row of one of C buildings larger classrooms so you can see the whole room. You notice some familiar faces, and prepare yourself for the arrival of the professor. The profes- sor enters and begins with the usual opening dia- logue. It seems as though every teacher starts the first class off in the same fashion. Just once you would like to see it done differently. The opening diatribe com- pleted, the teacher proceeds to hand out those little 3 X 5 index cards on which you are to put down your name, rank, student number, and past educational history. These collected, the syllabus is then passed out. This is where the teacher has supposedly charted out for you the time table for the course. He fails to mention however, that the only day that he will stick to that time table is today, and that from now on he will either fall way behind or decide to cover five more chapters of the textbook. If you are lucky, the teacher will dismiss the class early because he has the same distaste for the first day of classes that you do. But for the unlucky ones whose teachers believe that a wasted minute of class time is a cardinal sin, you open up your notebook and proceed to take notes about the sexual habits of Aborigines in the jungles of Australia. Finding this less than enthralling, your mind begins to wander off into thoughts of more exciting things. Every so often you drift back to the lecture just to make sure you are not missing anything important. Finally after an hour and ten minutes of straight lecturing, the teacher finishes. You let out a sigh of relief and head towards your second class, where the process will be the same. You spend your class-time looking around at all the other people in the class. There are always those people who think that every word the professor says is gold, and write down the lecture verbatim in their notebooks. Then there are the people who listen for a ' while, dream, and then listen again. Finally, there are the students who pre- tend to write something down but are really more interested in whether the person in front of them is involved with someone, and whether that gorgeous creature is busy this weekend. Classes done for the day, you head back to your room feeling relieved because you made it through the first day. Once in the peace and quiet of your room you sit back and reflect upon the day’s activi- ties. All in all, your classes weren’t that bad or that hard. Looking out your window at the rush hour traffic heading home, you think to yourself, “Wow, the year really has begun, and I’m ready for it, well, almost ready for it.”