pink postmodern triangles
august 28th, 2000

i am soooo much in love with my modern and postmodern literature course! 
imagine this - you're sitting in the back of a small, stuffy classroom at 
long tables next to some transfered-from-ut-so-let-me-try-to-impress-you 
dumbass, recalling all of the names of the authors you'd collected off the 
bookshelf in the campus bookstore and not recognizing any of them, 
wondering if you have perhaps made a horrible mistake - and the coolest 
professor in the entire earth walks in, all mad-professor like, with 
messed up hair and this wild look in his eyes, starts scribbling things on 
the board in disjointed handwriting, and you already know, even then. you 
already know, because you met this professor the week before when you were 
looking to see where your classes were, this professor and his pink 
triangle office door. he starts rambling about modern and postmodern and 
romantics and the velvet underground, and you glance at the syllabus and 
notice that the biggest portion of your grade is based on...a *web site* 
project. and you're jumping up and down with this big goofy grin on your 
face like you've just unwrapped the most kick-ass present on the face of 
the planet, and the synapses are going off in your head, and ideas bounce 
around the room like rubber balls, and you had forgotten that school could 
make you this happy.

this was me, this afternoon. i mean, the mad professor from my dreams, 
modern and postmodern literature, and web design. hot damn.

it was such a wonderful closing, too, because the rest of the day had not 
gone so well. spanish was intimidating, intro to theatre was absolutely 
boring (not to mention i had to sit through a fifteen minute lecture about 
"how we're all adults now, and we have to take responsibility for our work 
and no one is going to hold our hands..." with me rolling my eyes, wanting 
to raise my hand and say, "um, excuse me, i have a one-year-old daughter 
at home, and i'm a single mom and a full-time student. i think the last 
thing i need is to sit through a lecture on responsibility from you. 
especially since your definition of responsibility means to not talk or 
chew gum in class." needless to say, i dropped the class as soon as i got 
home, and replaced it with an art history course, which i hope will turn 
out a *little* more intellectually stimulating.) probability and 
statistics was not as bad as i thought it was going to be, save that i 
couldn't understand a single thing the professor was saying, and there 
were about 50 of us crowded into a 15 square foot area. on top of this, i 
had somehow accidentally left my license at home, and was nearly refused 
my financial aid check because of this (but i still had my old mtsu id, so 
it was all good.) needless to say, i was not in the best mindframe when i 
scurried up to the third floor of burleson hall. but any doubts i had 
about coming here and starting over were quieted as soon as that class 
began.

it's not going to be easy. what was once leisure time between classes that 
i used to spend hanging out with friends or exploring odd things will now 
be spent studying for courses and doing homework so i will have more time 
to spend with my daughter upon my return home. making friends won't be so 
easy, because, let's face it, when you're just meeting someone, the last 
thing you really want to do is have to hang out with their one-year-old 
daughter, and all of this beside, i've found it's a lot harder to make 
friends with people when you don't live on campus and are not immersed in 
the college atmosphere. plus, students my age have pretty much settled 
into their own little clicks and tribes, and it is very rare for such a 
group to seek anyone else out. (the old wood-felder group has not really 
adopted many new members in the past year or so.) but it's fine, and it 
really doesn't bother me as much as it used to. i remember once a long 
time ago i used to feel absolutely horrible staying by myself somewhere. 
sitting at a table alone and watching people across the room laughing in 
their groups and having so much fun. but i don't even think like that 
anymore. i'm still kind of shy, and sometimes i stumble over my words, and 
sometimes i watch people who look like they might be neat to know walk by 
and wonder if i should try to say anything to them, but for the most part 
i just watch, and i find it neat to watch people do things. and i feel 
really good about myself. i even tried to climb that tree today, but i was 
too short. :)

i like it though. i can't wait to see what astronomy has in store for me 
tomorrow, even though i really can't imagine any science professor putting 
jay white to shame - he just rocked. but still, i'll get to go 
star-gazing, and it'll actually count as a lab-science credit. so it can't 
be all bad, right?

for now, i need to get to sleep before my daughter wakes up.