Crazy First Day - Kinga Long...Sorry

So today has been soo crazy. First I wake up and go to my first class. So far so good. I am such a slacker. I don't have any of my books, know any of my teachers names, or what class I should be going to. All I knew when I woke up this morning is that I had an 11 o'clock class in Ritter Hall 238. I didn't even know the class title or anything.

As soon as I walk into the classroom the teacher says his name, then annouces in a loud voice that he is gay and has had a partner for 22 years. Not that I have anything against gay people or their partners, but I thought it was really strange that was the first thing he said. I don't walk into classrooms and annouce that I'm straight and have had a boyfriend for a year and a half. What does his sexual orientation have to do with anything? He later told us that the class was like Diversity in the Classroom or something like that and asked everyone in the class to explain if they have had any experience with Diversity. I said going to El Salvador and he thought that was cool. He's a pretty chill teacher, and now I kinda understand why he told us he was gay. I was surprised when another girl in the class said she was a lesbian, I thought that took a lot of guts because people at SLU are pretty judgemental and she got some weird looks. She was the last person I ever expected to be a lesbian because of the way she looked and dressed and acted, and now I feel bad for judging her before I even knew her but I guess everyone really judges everyone in their head, the thing that makes it bad is when people act on those judgments. Like if I saw someone I thought looked like a bitch I don't think I would be wrong for thinking she looks like a bitch but I think I would be wrong if I blew her off because of it.

Anyway, so basically the day had gone pretty smoothly. My class ended a little early so I had time to chill in my apartment and take a shower before my next class. I went and looked at my roomies schedule - she put in on the wall in case of an "emergency"...freak! - and see that she gets out of class the same time I do. Since I had gotten out like 15 minutes early I was expecting her to be back in like 15 to 20 minutes. Well, I jump in the shower without even thinking to grab the most important thing. So I shower for like 15 minutes, and as soon as I get out I was like..."Shit, I forgot a towel." Now many times I have gotten in the shower thinking no one was in the room, and then when I get out I listen to see if I can hear if my roomie is in the room and if I don't hear anything I walk out in a bra or something. Well a couple times she has been in the room, she is just as quite as a mouse, which is weird because of her weight I would think I should be able to hear her walking or something. Nope absolutely silent. So today I'm stuck standing in the bathroom literally sopping wet and dripping all over. I was worried the floor would start to leak in the room below us. So I needed to do something fast. I was thinking my roomie might be back from her class already. I listen carefully and don't hear her. So I'm getting ready to walk out of the shower naked, when I remember about how she is always quite and I've been surprised to see her in the room before. So I call her name a few times. She's not there. I run out of the room expecting her back any minute because her class had ended like 8 minutes ago. I am searching everywhere for a towel, only to realize I left all my towels at home on accident. I heard someone walking down the hall, so I dash back into the shower as quickly as I can. I grabbed her towel to dry off really quickly and her towel is navy blue and left nasty little blue things all over my body. I barely even got to dry off and I ran back out of the bathroom naked and dressed as quickly as I could. Luckily, my room has a faulty lock and I was dressed and brushing my hair before she even opened the door. She doesn't know it happened.

My day only gets better...after my shower I have to leave like immediately to get to my next class. On the schedule me and Tom had printed this weekend, it says my class is in Xavier Hall room 128. I'm rushing to get to Xavier and not be late for class, I was a little behind schedule because of the towel ordeal. Since I didn't get to dry off properly I was walking still wet. Today it was lightly snowing all day and temperature was like 19 degrees and lower including wind chill. As soon as I step outside my wet hair starts to turn into icicles. Literally my hair turned to icicles. So I am freezing wet all over with icy hair and people are giving me weird looks. I finally make it to Xavier 128 like a minute after my class should have started (12:45). I walk into the room and there is a small class of like 15 people and an old lady teacher. I didn't even realize I was in the wrong classroom, because again I hadn't cared to look at what classes I was going to, just the time and location. So the teacher asks me what I am in the classroom for, and I am just standing in the back of the classroom (the door is in the back) the whole class is turned and looking at me. So I said "Class". Everyone started laughing at me, I was so embarassed. I don't get it, all I did was answer her question she asked what I was there for. The teacher was really nice though and simply asked "Which class sweety?" I told her I had no idea. More laughing from the class. Luckily, another person walked in the classroom and asked "Is this American History?" I knew immediately that was the class I was in cause I know I'm taking American History...I remembered because my professor was rated hot on ratemyprofessor.com. I was thanking God this girl came in and saved me. The teacher explained there had been some sort of mix up and our History class was actually in Reinart Hall 236. She asked me and the girl to write down our names and email addresses and she said she would email our teacher to tell him that we had at least attempted to come to class if we couldn't meet up with him later. The other girl raced up to write her name down and ran out of the room. Because I honestly didn't care if I was late since I am not the one who fucked up, I took my time writing my name and email address down. As I was leaving the room the teacher called, "Wait come here for a second." I walked back into the classroom and she asked "Do you know who your teacher is so I know who to email?" Again, I had no fucking clue. I just stood there saying "Um" like an idiot while the class, once again, laughed at me. The teacher smiled nicely and said "Thats ok I can look it up after this class."

I was so embarassed I was walking down the hall and suddenly remembered I didn't know where Reinart was. I knew it was a dorm building so I didn't understand how there were classrooms. Luckily right as I left the classroom I bumped into Tom in the same building on his way to class. He looked really cute in the outfit he was wearing and I was so relieved to see him. So he explained to me how he thought you should go to get to the classrooms in Reinart and where it was, but he wasn't quite positive about where the classrooms were located in Reinart and I was still a little unclear. I thanked him and headed off to my class. At this point it had to be around 12:55 or 1. My class started at 12:45. So I am walking again in the freezing cold with icy hair. Reinart is all the way across campus basically. So as I am walking I am still a little confused about how to get into the classrooms. Then I see a girl walking with a History book and I am so excited. She was walking sooo fast...and let me explain something quickly. The only way I can really explain this is by using horses as an example. Those who have ridden horses or had lessons know that horses have four natural gaits. They are walking, trotting, cantering, and galloping. Each horse moves at their own speed for the gait. There are fast walking horses and slow walking horses, and sometimes a horse that walks slow can only move as quickly as a horse that walks fast while it is trotting. So the slow horse has to trot to keep up with the fast horse while it just walks. Now let me relate this to my situation. I have just a natural slow walk. I can walk kinda fast if I want to, but I have come to find out I cannot walk as fast as other people. Maybe its because my legs are short or something, but if I want to move as fast as others when they like power walk, I have to move up to jogging. I can jog pretty quickly and I can sprint alright, but I just cannot walk as fast as some other people without starting to jog.

So this girl is like power walking sooo quickly. I have to keep jogging to keep up with her and occasionally I have to start running. As soon as I get to Reinart I notice she starts to walk around the side of the building. So I am following her and she keeps like looking over her shoulder...I don't blame her it was pretty creepy but I really had to know where to go so I can get to class. By now it is like 1:10 or 1:15ish. So I follow her all the way around to the back of the building only to see her get into her car and drive away and get onto the highway. I was like "Fuck I just followed this girl this whole time and she was just going to her car." So I walk back around to the front of Reinart and see more people with books and backpacks walking in. I should have learned my lesson, but I start to follow them in Reinart to see if they can lead me to the classrooms. So I follow them and they walk down this hallway with three doors on the left side. They go in the first one. It was room 20. I was thinking the lady told me I was in 200 something but I assumed she just made a mistake. So, I follow them in. There is a huge class and a teacher at the front talking. I just stood at the door til he noticed me and asked me if I would take a seat. He didn't look hot, he looked old, so I was thinking I had gotten the wrong class because again ratemyprofessor.com had my History professor listed as a hottie. I asked the teacher if this was History but he said no it was English. Damn. I walked around trying to find more classrooms but all the other doors were locked and they weren't classrooms. I saw my friend Nina was working at the desk in the dorm side of the building and asked her if there was a room 200 something in the building. She said there was only one classroom and it was room 20.

So I'm frustrated at this point having walked in the cold with icy hair for nothing. Then I remember there is a Ritter Hall on campus. I know there is a room 236 in Ritter. I was like, "Oh, she probably meant Ritter." Ritter isn't too far from Reinart but it is already 1:25ish and my class ends at 2. So I run to Ritter and get there in record time (like 4 or 5 minutes). I went to 236 and saw a woman teaching, and one thing I know for sure is my teacher is male. So I went all around the floor looking in all the 200 rooms but not many classes were being held and the only ones that were had women teachers.

Defeated I came back to my apartment. I was so determined not to be late for my first class and give the teacher the impression I am a slacker or something (which I am, I just didn't want him to know...yet). I decided to recheck my computer and check my schedule again to see if they had the right room posted now (I had last printed my schedule like Saturday so I wasn't sure if they had changed it since then). I figured I could do it quick enough and still make it for the last ten or fifteen minutes. So I am in a huge rush. Then my internet won't work, and I remembered that I have to reregister my computer to use the internet. Registering doesn't take long so I go as quickly as I can. Then the stupid computer says I need to update. As I am updating it keeps stopping saying "Bad checksum". So I called ITS and sat on the phone with it ringing for like 5 minutes before they took my call. Before I figured out how to fix the problem it was like 5 til two. I looked at my schedule and they had changed the rooms on the schedule. The room I should have gone to is Xavier Hall 236. One fucking floor above the room I was in when the lady told me to go to Reinart. I could have just walked up a floor instead of going through the whole thing.

So then I had to walk to go talk to the people about changing my meal plan to the commuter meal plan since I am going to buy my own food this semester. Trying to eat healthy and lose some weight, and thats impossible to do with campus food. So I went there and changed that. Then I went to go try and figure out my financial shit because I am on the verge of losing my classes. I have been having a lot of problem getting my student loan figured out and my parents keep threatening to not cosign for it because my dad hates SLU and never wanted me to come here and is making me pay for the left over tuition costs and all this shit. So I went to go get that figured out and my mom gave me a check to pay for all the other stuff I need to pay for. The problem is they way overcharged us. It is so fucking hard to get anything done right around here. It was hell trying to find out how much I owed them its so confusing because I have my loan problems and I changed my meal plan and I am supposed to be getting more money from this one thing and its not showing up and now I have to figure out how much money I should be getting back and go bother them til they give me the refund check. It is impossible to get anyone to do anything right without having to do it four or five times. Ugh.

But thats not all. I was frustrated but I came back to my apartment and I emailed my teacher and he emailed me back saying he would not count it as an absence and he was really nice. That put me in a better mood. Tom came over and that put me in an even better mood. Me and Tom went to go get some lunch and sell back our books. Turns out they are only taking back two of the books I had, and I only got 30 dollars back. Bullshit. Me and Tom grab some food and eat together. We talked and realized we both needed money desperately, I am so sick of being the poor college student who cannot go to the movies with everyone else cause I'm broke. So I called the YMCA to ask if they would train me as a lifeguard - my dad had told me he would pay for me to keep my car on campus if I could get a job. I got my supervisors answering machine and left her a message. She left me one back saying for the time I could teach swim lessons but I would have to wait to be trained. That sounded alright, the only problem is I work at the Kirkwood YMCA and I am kinda worried driving all the way out there and back to SLU might waste more money in gas then I am making. So me and Tom call the Office Depot by SLU (it is like 2 miles away) and ask if they are hiring. They said they are basically desperate for workers right now, so we decide to walk down there in the cold and dark to apply. I stop for hot chocolate on the way and accidentally spill some of it on my white jacket and all over my glove. My hand was all sticky (I hate being sticky).

We went to the Office Depot and applied and the guy there asked if we could come back tomorrow (technically today now because it is after midnight) for a test. Sounded like the guy wanted to hire us. I am kinda worried because Brenda at the Y has been trying to get me to work there year round since she found out I got into SLU and then I called her about getting a job and now I might get a different job and I hope I don't lose my summer job. I was thinking maybe I could work like twice a week at each job but again I don't know if I would be making enough to be making a profit cause of gas prices. I would be making $7.50 an hour as a lifeguard probably with 4 or 5 hour shifts and driving 12.73 miles to and from work (25.46 miles total for one trip to and from) and getting like 32ish miles per hour (it is mostly highway driving). If anyone wants to do the math and see if I will be making a big enough profit to take that job for two days out of the week instead of the one by SLU which will most likely pay less but be closer then go ahead. I feel obligated to take the YMCA job to save my summer camp job which I love soo much.

So all in all I had a crazy day. I must have walked nearly 8 miles all day just all around campus and too and from Office Depot. I am beat. Well, I'm gonna go read now and then fall asleep and hopefully have a less crazy day tomorrow. Sorry this was so long, just like my days was! All in all, it wasn't a bad day, I had fun and was glad to be back and with Tom again. Anyway, hope no one else had such a hectic first day back.