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The College Years (Chapter 5)
By Vader
THE COLLEGE YEARS
Entry I: The Beginning
Continued from Chapter 4 . . .
CHAPTER 5
It seemed the experience of Algebra class was all I needed in preparation for how things would be at Mesa from then on. I was headed for my next class, just a few minutes after Dr. Meckstroff had let us out, and on the way, I found myself wondering what Emanuel had planned for our good friend Scott. Being new to this type of age group, I really didn’t know what to expect, even though I did have a few ideas that seemed (at the time) far fetched. It was bothersome, however, that I had already managed to make an enemy on my first day. Still soaking in the aftershock of my first class, I rounded a corner and entered a small courtyard, filled with several tables, all with students sitting at them.
Rounding that one corner felt like entering the Twilight Zone. Each and every student was talking on a Nokia cell phone, and was sipping a bottle of Aquafina water. Absolutely nobody was without either, as if they were carrying a trend that had been established exclusively in that one spot. Stopping in my tracks and raising my left eyebrow, I examined the scene a little longer before I continued on my way, baffled.
I arrived at room I-204 – Mr. Rybert’s English class.
Once entering, I found that I was the first one to arrive, and promptly found a seat in the same area I did for Algebra, near the middle. The classrooms were almost identical, causing me to have an inevitable feeling of deja-vu and hope this period would turn out better than the previous. While noting that the teacher’s materials were already on the front desk, I saw other classmates begin flooding into the room. I half expected someone to strike up a conversation with me just as Emanuel did, but it never happened. It seemed the only ones conversing were two vapid freshmen g irls that obviously had arrived together, their exchanged words sounding so shallow and meaningless they probably rose to the top of the room like helium.
In the next minute, a young man of about twenty-five strolled up. He was unshaven, had short, cropped, black hair, and wore baggy shorts and an Ocean Pacific shirt. I watched him hop up onto the teacher’s desk in an extremely casual fashion and began to sift through the papers. I ed my eyebrow when spotting this student whom appeared to be trying to cheat, and looked around me to see if anyone had noticed – sure enough, all had a suspicious look on their face. After several moments of silence, I was the only one that chose to spoke, something I would later resent. “Hey, um, what are you doing, dude?” I asked.
The young man turned to look at me, his eyes calm, yet very annoyed. “What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked sarcastically.
“I don’t think the teacher wants you doing that,” I replied, then realizing that I was only provoking another incident like the one with Scott, quickly snapping my jaw shut.
“I am the teacher,” he told me, shaking his head as if I was an idiot, afterwards turning towards the rest of the class and began one of the most speedy and baffling sentences I would ever hear in my life: “Hello. My name is Sim, and I’ll be teaching ya’ll for the rest of this semester. Your syllabi are under your desks. I have a couple rules I have to lay down right now. First, do not call me professor, because I hate that title – just call me Sim. Second, no late papers because that forces me have to work over-time and cuts into a lot of my surfing. Third, I noticed most of you have cell phones up here, and almost all of you are addicted to it like its cocaine – if your cell phones dare to ring in the middle of my teaching, you’re going to have to buy two boxes of donuts for the entire class or else you loose twenty points. Everyone understand? Good. Now this is the only class all semester I’m letting you out early, because I’m not going to start getting into the short stories on the first day. I think that rushing into things sucks. So have a good day.”
Wow.
Um . . . wow.
I could barely believe anything that had just happened. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking this was some jerk playing a prank. I glared at this ‘Sim’ character a little longer until my blabbering mouth started to talk again.
“You’re are teacher?” He sighed - hard.
“You have a problem with it?”
“Um . . . no . . . sir.” I looked down, still thinking about everything that he’d just spewed, and finally made myself not question it any further.
“You have the wrong books, dude,” he noted sharply, just as I was about leave with everyone else. “You’ll need to return them and get Literacies and Keys For Writers.” Realizing I was carrying Harbrace’s Handbook and Perspectives, I turned around to face him once more.
“What?” he demanded in answer to my gaze.
“Nothing, nothing. Sorry. Thanks,” I stuttered, utterly embarrassed. I spun back around to quickly stuff my books back into my pack. As I did my best to get everything to fit inside once more, I felt a light tap on my back from behind.
“Did you get those at K.B. Books?” came a ’s voice. I looked behind me to see a female standing there in a black shirt and jeans, smirking. Confronting her fully, I nodded, putting my hands in my pockets.
“Yup. Why?” I asked, giving a friendly grin. She chuckled, her smirk turning into a smile.
“No wonder. Did a little, shrimpy kid get those for you?”
“Yeah.”
“Same here. I bet you he gave everyone the wrong books. Don’t worry about it, I had no problem exchanging them,” she assured me, extending her palm for a hand shake. “I’m Erin.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Jack,” I told her, glad that I’d met a someone who belonged in the normal person category (after the past few hours, I was beginning to think that ‘breed’ was either extinct or unbelievably illusive up here). “Thanks for the tip.” My exchange with Sim coming to mind again, I nervously rubbed the back of my head. “At first I couldn’t believe he was our teacher.” She covered her mouth, laughing.
“Me neither. He’s so young!” She stopped for a moment, and then continued. “So are you a freshmen here?”
“Yeah. You?” I found myself feeling the most comfortable I ever had in the past several hours.
“Yup. I guess I don’t look it though – I’m twenty-six.” I was a bit startled by this revelation, for it was unusual for someone of that age to be just starting college. “I took a few years off because of some . . . personal matters.” While I was a bit curious as to just what those matters were, I knew it was none of my business.
“Well, at least you’ve gotten started,” I told her to end the conversing nicely, slinging my backpack over my shoulder and readying to leave. “I’ve got to get to my next class. I’ll see you later.” She waved goodbye as I turned and exited, my hopes for the upcoming months having been brightened slightly just because of that chance meeting. It proved that not everyone was intimidating or strange in this other worldly campus.
I realized that next in my schedule was the class that I had been recommended to take by my councilor – Personal Growth. I groaned with reluctance to even attend, and even debated as to why exactly I even signed up for it in the first place. In the end, I decided it would be best to at least check it out. But nothing could prepare me for what I was about to see . . .
(More to come)
12/23/2002 10:14:10 PM
(Updated: 12/23/2002 11:27:32 PM)
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