First Day of School

Today is my 21st first day of school. This might be the last one ever. It will certainly be the last one for a long time, at least. I've had a lot of good first days, and I've always looked forward to them. I remember the first day of kindergarten. We have that picture of all of us standing at the end of the sidewalk waiting for the bus. I remember the first day of 3rd grade. I was really nervous about meeting my teacher, Mrs. Vukusich. I'd heard lots of rumors about how mean she was. I didn't need to worry though - she turned out to be one of my favorite teachers, in spite of having to deal with long division that year. The first day of 7th grade was memorable too - the day I started at Riverton Parke. Every class was divided in half that day - half Rosedale and half Montezuma. Actually, it was probably more like 2/3 Rosedale, 1/3 Montezuma. The two elementaries that fed into my jr.-sr. high segregated themselves for awhile. Then, of course, there was my first day at Purdue, August 23, 1999. My first class was HIST 104 Modern World History in EE 172. My professor was Gordon R. Mork, the chair of the department. He did his undergrad at Yale and his grad work at Minnesota, I believe. He was a Minnesota native, and was on the crew team at Yale. I also had POL 101, FR 201, MATH 152, and BAND 110 (Marching Band!) that day. M,W,F were very busy days. I had 17 hrs. that semester. That day I almost dropped my French class and my French minor. My instructor was a native Frenchman, and he came in spewing everything out in French from the start. I thought I would be lucky to get a C, but I got an A. :) I was a little apprehensive about some things by the time I got to band at the end of the day, but it turned out to be a great semester. September 27, 2004 was my first day at Fuller, and I was still trying to figure out what I was doing here. Intensive Greek was my only class that quarter, and I nailed it.

Betsy and I used to rehearse for the first day of school. We'd practice getting up, getting dressed, eating breakfast, and waiting for the bus. I didn't do anything like that leading up to today, but I did mark the occasion by making breakfast for my roommates and me this morning. I got up at 6 a.m. and made French toast, eggs, and bacon. It was great. My roommate made coffee, too, so the apartment was full of great morning smells. We enjoyed our breakfast, and I think everything was clean by 9:00, most of it by 8:30.

This morning I'm off to a class called Family Therapy and Pastoral Counseling. Tomorrow I have Pentateuch and Hebrew.

This is it folks. The beginning of the end.

(Oh, and by the way, three months from today is Christmas.)