You would think that after 40 first days of school, I would be some sort of expert by the 41st first day of school. Still, the fear continued. 

After two weeks of break, school has once again resumed. I spent most of Sunday signing in and logging out of my school’s student information system and making sure I had my class schedule memorized. I have only two classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and one class on Tuesday and Thursday. Not that hard, right? Still, I logged in and out at least five times on Sunday to make sure I hadn’t mess up the room number. There’s nothing worse than walking into the wrong class even though it’s never happened to me. That’s why I prepare!

By Sunday afternoon, I was pretty confident with my schedule. Okay, room 117 and then 113, I repeated mentally. Just two classes tomorrow, you can do it.

But then my superstitious left eye began to twitch. Great. My confidence immediately drained and dread filled its place. What will happen? Traffic? Building not finished? 

The building where my classes were held had been under construction since the end of spring semester and I heard that it won’t be done until August 28, the day before school would resume. The instructor also said the school didn’t have any back up plan for if the construction was behind the schedule. Uh oh!

Monday morning, I arrived, parked my car in the usual parking lot, and hopped onto a AC-less shuttle jam-packed with people for 5 minutes. Okay, I thought as I got off the shuttle. So far so good even though I’m all sweaty now. The temperature had once again risen back to the 90’s today. Ugh!

Silently, I walked across campus to the building. Okay, no fences, I’ll take it as a good sign. I began heading to the side door to go directly to my class but then, I stopped and pulled out my phone to check the time. There’s still 15 minutes left. Maybe I can go and have the adviser add my final class for me. I emailed her last week and she never responded.

I entered the building and immediately saw the results of the construction. The lights were much brighter than before and there was a fresh paint smell. Wasting no time, I went to adviser’s office. She asked a few questions before applying the override on the course and then, I was on my way to my first class.

Okay, room 117, I know where it is. The door was locked and there were a lot of familiar people in the hall waiting. That’s a good and bad sign since they’re going about the degree through the regular unlike me, skipping around. So since this class is a senior level class, that meant they’re close to graduating. From my backpack, I pulled out my tablet and logged into the school system again. That’s when the instructor showed up and everyone followed him into the classroom. I followed before the school website loaded the information I needed.

It turned out I was in the right class. Whew! For the duration of the class, the instructor discussed the syllabus and the 4th Amendment. I’m dreading the class already.

By the time this class ended 50 minutes later and I made my way to my second class, the room was almost filled and seemed like the instructor had begun talking already. I knew I was in the right class this time since the instructor was talking about ethics but so soon? I checked the time on my phone, still had 7 minutes before class would begin. I sat down and listened. I thought it was a good lecture and have a feeling this will be a good class even with all the reading.

Overall, I made it through my 41st first day of school without so much as a scratch. I should have less fear about the first day of school. After all, it’s just another day of school. What’s there to be afraid of?

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