Thursday, September 11, 2008
Here!




Been a while, for the blog and for me in a classroom. But here we are, and there I was last week, squeezed into one of those lefty-unfriendly desks and announcing myself present for the first day of Spanish 1A and the beginning of the end of my college career (when it's been going on for 12 years, career is just the word).

Much is different this time round. There are still chalkboards and projector screens, but also a 40-inch flat-screen television hanging from the ceiling. Lil' Wayne shows up out of nowhere when a phone rings. There is finally an alternative to grabbing your ankles at the bookstore, with far better deals to be found on Amazon. (A result of this, however, is that no one actually has the textbook for the first three or four classes.)

What's also new is my determination, the sum of being a bit embarrassed plus being the one who's paying. And there's this: on two of my three days a week, when class is dismissed I walk outside and meet a pretty girl, give her a kiss and sling my arm around her, and in that moment I am the Big Man On Campus instead of the Old Man at City College.

The learning theme continued Monday with quiz night at our favorite bar, Trial's. First time out, and Kelley and I came second. We would have won had she not written "Little Shop of Horrors" when she was thinking "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and had I just put down "Carl Lewis" instead of insisting that, because we boycotted the Moscow Games, no one could have been on the U.S. Olympic team from 1980 through 1996. Ah well, we shall keep at it.

Posted by Chris at 7:46 AM | 0 comments