Free periods FTW.

Ah, free periods.  That miraculous part of the day where you just sigh with happiness because you have time to do ANYTHING.

Which, of course, mostly means do homework, wash dishes, take out trash, vacuum your floor, etc.

But free periods are still pretty amazing.  Getting a major chunk of my homework knocked out before the afternoon/evening rolls around is awesome, because it means I get to have some semblance of a social life.  Possibly.  Maybe?  ... yeah.  I still don't know that many people.  I gotta work on that.  But I'm not friendless by any means.  Besides Ena, my roomie, and a lot of the people on my hall, I've gotten to know some of my classmates at least moderately well.  So I'm getting there.

Which reminds me: school officially started on Tuesday.  And I, being the amazing person that I am, accidentally looked at my Monday schedule instead of my Tuesday one.  Sweet!  I don't have any classes till 8:55.  

So, in a leisurely fashion, I got dressed and headed down to the PFM (read: cafeteria) to have myself a nice bowl of Corn Pops and watch people.  Funny, I thought.  There are a lot less people here than I thought there would be.  I guess they're all in 8:00 class... like I have tomorrow... wait.

A horrible thought struck me.  Oh god.  It's not Monday.

I looked at my watch: it was 8:15.  I was 15 minutes late for American Studies.  Oh god.  Oh god, oh god, oh GOD.  Abandoning my barely-touched bowl of cereal, I sprinted out of the PFM and back to the elevator to go upstairs and get my bookbag, cursing under my breath and wondering why on earth the elevator had to stop at every floor before coming to mine.

As I gathered my stuff and sprinted down the stairs (the elevator just wasn't worth it for only 5 floors... wait, what?), I felt dread creeping into the pit of my stomach.  In trepidation, I walked slowly down the hallway, my haste pushed aside by the realization that I would be walking into a classroom filled with strangers and having to explain to an as-yet-unknown teacher why I was 20 minutes late.

Classroom 005... 004... 003.  Well, I thought as I stood in front of the door, here goes nothing.  Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open...

... to find the friendly face of none other than one of my mom's favorite teachers, Dr. Miller, smiling back at me.  I felt a surge of relief.  He's met me before, so maybe he'll be sympathetic...


"I'm so sorry," I said in a rush.  "I looked at the wrong day of my schedule and-"

"Don't worry about it," Dr. Miller said kindly.  "Happens to a lot of people on their first day.  We have a seat for you over there.  It's alphabetical," he added wryly, "so don't get the idea that sitting in the back is a punishment."

I looked around carefully.  The other students and Dr. Miller's teaching partner, Dr. Fenn, looked at me with understanding, not with annoyance or hostility, and I began to relax.

The rest of the class was uneventful.  In fact, pretty much the only thing that happened was that we got our syllabi and went over what would be happening throughout the year.  All my classes on Tuesday were some sort of variation on that basic theme.  Of course, they were different - in Chorale, I learned that we would be singing with Eric Whitacre in the Duke Chapel in October.  (Needless to say, my mind was blown.  If you don't know who Eric Whitacre is, look him up!)  In AP Chemistry, we had to determine which of two substances was sodium chloride and which was p-dichloryl benzene by their properties, such as solubility, pretty much as soon as we walked into the classroom.  (In case you were wondering, p-dichloryl benzene is really similar to the stuff that goes in toilet bowl air fresheners, and it smells exactly the same.  Bleeeeagh.)  And in AP Calculus BC (with topics!  oh joy), we learned about derivatives and how to use them to find instantaneous speed at any given point on a curve.  But basically all we did in each class was get an intro to the subject material we'd probably be covering during the year.

And, of course, I had free periods.  Three of them, as a matter of fact.  In fact, I have three free periods every day except Monday and Wednesday (and sort of Tuesday), when I only have two because of work service.  So I guess you could say I have 3 free periods twice a week, and two the rest of the week.  Why didn't I just say that to begin with?  The world may never know.

Speaking of work service: I work in the mailroom 3 hours a week, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.  I didn't know what to expect, but when I walked into the mailroom for the first time yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised.  My supervisor (whose name I can't remember at the moment) seemed incredibly friendly and understood that a lot of what she was showing us was overwhelming.  She promised us we'd have it down within two weeks, but I'm not so sure.  Not only do we have to sort incoming packages and mail, we also have to deliver said mail to its proper location, and give packages to students and teachers who come to pick them up.  Of course, we need to get interdepartmental transfer mail as well, and take care of outgoing mail and packages, and deliver incoming office supplies to the teachers who need them, and... well, you get the idea.  It's a lot to remember.  But I get the feeling it's going to be fun, and who knows?  Maybe by the end of the trimester I'll actually know my way around campus.

I think the next few weeks are going to be challenging, but also awesome.  I'm signed up for intramural soccer, I plan to head over to Ninth Street as often as I can, and my dad's going to bring me my rollerblades today so I have a fun way to get around/get exercise.  My classes seem like they're going to be much more interactive and hands-on than anything I've taken before.  (Of course, they also seem like they're going to be seriously difficult.)  I'm starting to get used to dorm life and *gasp* actual responsibility, like doing homework before the last minute, and making sure my room doesn't turn into a pigsty.  And I'm having a lot of fun.

In other words, things are looking good.