Aaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnd they're off!

Yet another semester begins on the morrow.

I write about it every term, I think.

Few events offer such very-vivid ties to memories as a new semester, a first day of school. Oh, when I smell cantaloupe or fresh soil, I remember growing up on the farm. Visiting a grade school brings back lots of memories (and it reminds me how much I've grown since then--the furniture is so small!). A new term, though, stuns me every time. Like Johnny Mnemonic reviewing his contents, or a blipvert blast--it all comes back to me in technicolor (or maybe now-a-days, in HD, or 3D, or HD3D-Imax!)

When I walk in tomorrow, I'll remember the first college classroom in which I took the podium. It was frightening, as I was only a few years removed from my students (some, even as today, were my elders). I can still recall wading through the roster, taking roll aloud, botching a name: Chelsea (in my defense, I'd never seen it in writing before). I recall how they sat in wooden chairs with the wrap around desktop, how I tripped on one. I remember passing out recipe cards, even then, as I do to this day, to collect who's who. Remembering these things may not seem so remarkable--except that it took place in 1986--and if readers know me, I cannot remember where I parked, let alone something from the dark ages.

I will also remember my first college class--a night class in American Literature, taught by my old English teacher, in my old high school classroom, only a year after I'd graduated. I will remember the feeling of awe and confusion, that I was embarking on something I did not at all think I might be capable of doing!

I remember the second college course, too, at a large university. I was so ignorant then. I did not know what a credit hour was. I did not know it was odd that my prof was taking roll by social security number, that he treated us like grunts from day 1 to the bitter end. I was TERRIFIED, for it was Oral Communications, and I was surrounded by upperclassmen who all looked like the Bee Gees or the cool kids off the Brady Bunch. (Everyone puts off speech, which I was not advised of, and thus, I was the only freshman in the course!) I was a hick kid from Ulysses. Strangely, I do recall a fellow trying to tell the class about his hometown, Hoxie, which was even smaller than Ulysses...even now, 30 years later, that first day is forever ingrained in my memory.

For that matter, I can recall many firsts, many first days of school, all the way back to grade school...

Thus, I am NOT one to take the first day lightly. Inevitably, someone in the room will be in their first college classroom, even if I am teaching Comp II (some CLEP out, others had Comp I online or in high school, like I did my Am. Lit). I want to be a positive influence, offer a good encounter and a vivid memory for anyone who might be walking in the same shoes.