Only the beginning, only just the start...

My first class yesterday was Envirnomental Science, not really something that I would say is up my alley. My professor had a name, but I completely forget it since he looked exactly like a teacher I had my senior year of high school that we all called Nate-Dog, right down to the slicked-back blonde hair. The class was to be from 5:45- 7:10. I took my seat at 5:40 and watched the regular crowd shuffle in: three middle-aged women that had tanned too much, had regrettable tattoos and lots of eye make up...the kid who plays D and D but covers it up by riding his motorcycle to class, complete with lame helmet...a friendly looking man in his early twenties, clean-cut and well-dressed, with both arms completely covered in tattoos...a trio of "badass" guys who apparently knew each other from high school...

At 5:45 Nate-Dog strides into the room over to the computer, punches in his log in, and gets rejected from the system. He does this about a dozen times, then walks out.

By 6, the computer guy has left the room and Nate-Dog has launched into a powerpoint presentation of his life. He started working with sandfleas, why they lived in a certain area, but alas, "I did not love the sandflea." So he went to Alaska and studied some fish, which he also did not love. He took up researching falcons for a while, but he never did have a love for birds, we are told. Despite his lack of interest, he does his PhD on some sort of bird. He is still not in love with birds when he finishes it. He now works for the U.S. Army to help them make their missiles more envirnomentally friendly. A lot of us perk up. Rockets are better than sandfleas! However, "I don't like rockets. Or the army."

He wraps up his talk at 6:30. He goes over the syllabus in five mintues, interrupting himself to tell us that the $87 book we all just bought (except the badasses) isn't really mandatory, as we were told. At 6:38 he begins to teach us, starting with one of those cheesy opening questions: "What is envirnomental science? Or better yet! What is science?" Motorcycle guy raises his hand and says confidentally, "The study of stuff." Nate-Dog cocks his head and says in a whiney that's-not-quite-it voice, "Well, yes, it is the study of stuuuuff, but let's be a liiiittle more specific." Motorcycle guy looks heartbroken, and Nate-Dog quickly adds, "But that's not a bad answer!" The class ends at 6:56.

Tuesday is my hard day. I have three morning-into-afternoon classes in a row, from 9:35 to 2:10, and then a night class from 7:20 to 10. Geography was okay. The prof seemed nice enough. One of the burnouts in this class did confess to us however, in the "Get to Know Everyone in the Class" segement, that the community college administration was making him take geography as pentanence for a brush with the law.

The last person you want to see walk into your Political Science class is probably Jerry Falwell. My professor could pass for him certainly, save for his ashen face in the place of Jerry's rosy cheeks. The man is about 65 or 70, too old to deal with the crap of teaching disrespectful college students about the workings of the United States government.

But old Jerry has been the best part of this so far. He described one of our assignments this way:

Well, you may notice that we have a small little paper. This paper is the result of a few people who come in every morning and make the molehill in their inbox into a mountain. You may know them as the "administration." These little gnomes gaaaather together in Catonsville once a year and devise ways to make other peoples' lives harder. Their most recent plan included this paper, which will show them that we are doing well as a liberal arts college.

This is how it will work. You will write a paper in response to a ridiculous, unanswerable, open-ended question, fill three pages with bullshit and hand it in to me. I will then paaaass your bullshit along to the gnomes. This is worth five percent of your grade. If you do it, you get five percent of your grade. If you don't, well...B. F. D. It's just five percent to prove to the gnomes that you can be as full of shit as they are.

He also later said that if want to see him during office hours, he would be down the hall hitting on the hot new sociology professor. He capped off the class by saying that today we were ending early, and that we would most days. But if he says that we would at the beginning of class, not to believe him, because "Guys can fake it too."

Sorry for writing a book. Most entries will be short and sweet. Right now everything is beginning and so amazing bizarre that I feel like I must share it all with you this minute. I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Peace,
Charlie