Back To School

I love starting new classes. I get a little giddy as the classes approach. Generally, this feeling abates almost as soon as the actual classes start. Remember the nightmare that was English 111? How dumb am I to be jumping into English 112 right after -- and still with an edge of anticipation that doesn't resemble dread?

Maybe it's the thought that I may actually get inspired and learn new things. Expand my brain cells from something beyond the best cure for frizz? (Graham Webb's Color Shine... Though I'm not sure of the name so much as the color and the look of the bottle.) Really want to read things that are longer than a, er, sitting? The allure of the clean notebook, the promise of... Just the promise really.

After my hopes were so bitterly disappointed in the past at The Country Club (local euphemism for the community college I attend), I really thought this feeling of anticipation wouldn't come up this time. But, I have since learned that my past English teacher's horrifying lack of anything resembling teaching skills are legendary, and the teacher for my online history class seems SO fun that I'm sorry I'm taking the class online, and this combo is apparently enough to re-ignite my excitement over school starting. (But, not enough to cease my problems with run-on sentences.)

I always secretly liked school when I was growing up. Granted, this was 90% because of the social aspect. But, in school I was blessed with a lot of really good teachers who really made learning enjoyable. Many times I learned things by default. I was having such a good time in their class, I didn't realize they were teaching me things along the way. Shame on them! Slipping in those bits of knowledge! But, while I will grudgingly admit that I am smart, I'm really not terribly smart and definitely growing less and less book smart as time goes on. I simply need a lot of motivation to read dry academic material. Good classes, good teachers are a good springboard for me. I guess this is why I start the semester with such a strong attitude of hope. Hoping that this time I will be inspired to study and read the material and not wing it. It's a defense mechanism that keeps me going.

Somehow, it's been working. But, it's history and sorry -- that doesn't excite me much. And literature, which I WISH interested me -- but it doesn't. I have always wanted to be the girl who reads a bunch of poetry AND understands it... But, I'm not and I don't. Hell, I didn't even understand some of the stuff I wrote when I was writing it. How can I be expected to understand other people's stuff.

But, maybe this time will be different...