Back to School

Back to School
Originally uploaded by holylandhipster.

As I walked to the bus stop at 7:45 am this morning, I thought about all the times I had a first day of school. I vaguely remember my Mom packing up a new knapsac, with a new Hello Kitty pencil case (with sharpened pencils of course) and the smell of new shoes when I was in my early years. My first day of Freshman year of high school, I wore my Gap finest gear, and danced like a loon at the Chagigah. My first day of Sophomore year of high school, I went to classes in my pajamas with a skirt on top. I don't remember if I even brushed my teeth that morning, but grunge was all the rage and I no longer needed to impress. And that's really when my memories stop, because by the time I entered college, first days of school were no big deal.

Today was the exception.

But, before I talk about the longest day I've had in a while, I need to start with last night.

Last night, when I should have been a "good girl" and disciplined enough to head to bed at a reasonable hour, I went out drinking with Ari instead. And, while out with him, I violated the cardinal rule for beer drinkers. This rule was taught to me by my friend Kim, who is another lover of Hoegaarden beer and Dive 75 on 75th and Columbus. (Man, I miss that place!)

Basically, to ensure that you'll sleep after a night of throwing back brews, you have to have a specific amount to drink. She calls it the 3 drink rule because, let's face it, no one can really stop after 1 pint. Of course, I blame the narcissist himself, who had to go to work, and therefore we were only able to get two beers in before he was on the clock. Oh, and by the way, he's exactly the way he portrays himself on his blog. Yup, a complete tool. And, oh yeah, we're going to be great friends.

So, I left Ari and his friend at his "job" and headed back to my apartment, thinking that I was going to be able to sleep through the night. I was clearly drunk, because I couldn't get to sleep! And, right when the buzz started wearing off, a crew of 8 Israeli's decided to sit outside my window and smoke, drink, and scream at each other in Hebrew. Until 4:30 a.m.

My alarm was going off at 6:15 am

I should have purchased stock in Visine before I left the States, I think I went through an entire bottle this morning.

The trip to school was great, I was able to relax while listening to my iPod, and made my way to the English department to deal with registration. I wasn't thrilled to be carrying the entire amount of my tuition in shekel (bills mind you), but fortunately I was able to offload the money fairly quickly. And, the best part of the morning is that I made a friend. (Cue the violins).

Tamara is a married, mother of two, hailing originally from Portland, Oregon and residing in Raanana. Similar to how Jules and I just really hit it off during our first night of the Gotham Writer's Workshop, same thing happened with Tamara. It was great. We met the rest of the folks in the program and then headed into orientation.

I'm not going to bore everyone with the nitty gritty details, mostly because I think it will put me to sleep and I'm trying desperately to stay up right now! But, we had our very first class and the writing and reading were very interesting.

First assignment: The plot is that someone's life has been ruined because of a devestating secret. Write about it.

Then, we read what we wrote out loud, and the instructor and people in the class commented and critiqued. I purposely did not volunteer to read mine aloud. I wanted to see how other people wrote, before I decided to give up the "goods". At one point, a gentleman in the class said that it was "time to squewer the publicist", which seemed to indicate that he assumed my writing was crap, but I just let the comment slide. He'll eventually get to read my shit, just needs to have a little patience.

At the end of the class, Tamara drove me down to the bus stop and I waited for 45 minutes in the hot sun for the bus to come (I literally missed the last bus by 5 minutes, which sucked).

I have some heavy duty writing assignments that I need to complete by Thursday (next time we meet for class), and some more reading to do, but otherwise I think the summer session should be good. The goal is to have 2 completed short stories, and since my thesis will probably consist of at least 15, this is a great start.

I'm too tired to go out tonight, and since Eli is no longer coming South for the party, I think I'm going to bail. Now all I have to do is figure out what's for dinner, and then it's straight to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.

Holy crap, I have homework!

Song of the day: Bittersweet Symphony by the Verve. It's great background music for reading.