i'm a firm believer that the first day of class sets the tone for the rest of the semester. so after my first day, i was a little concerned.

after a long day at work on sunday, i didn't feel much like hauling all of my worldly possessions up two flights of stairs into the sorority. i drove back home and put off the moving until after my monday morning class. i woke bright and early on monday, took a shower, put on makeup, and pulled on a carefully pre-chosen outfit which conveyed the whole "i'm awake, i'm clean, i'm attractive, but i'm not a freshman" image i had decided to project on campus this year. feeling a bit frivolous, i joined lauren in the bathroom to apply some mascara. as i struggled with this difficult task, i caught lauren gazing at me in the mirror.

"what!" i exclaimed, fully expecting a makeup lecture from the cosmetics queen.

"well.." she hesitated, "i thought you were going to dress cute for class this semester."

after my tears dried, i hopped in the car and headed for norman, where i was greeted at the sorority by a completely full parking lot. not only were all of the legal places taken, even the usual and somewhat irregular non-legal spaces were taken. at 8:00 in the morning, i simply could not process any solutions to this terrible problem. that is, any solutions that did not involve me skipping my very first class of the spring semester and going to sonic.

one breakfast burrito and a sizeable diet coke later, i made my way to the campus bookstore determined to make something of the morning. and FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS later, i left determined not to think about how much shoe money i had just sacrificed. i hauled my 30-some books to the car and drove back to the sorority, where i finally managed to secure a semi-kind-of-legal-spot.

and the first class i did finally make it to? "genocide and u.s. intervention." and the second? "weapons of mass destruction."

oh, what a semester it's shaping up to be.