Freshman Disorientation

August 17th, 2007

So I'm having this dream. I'm back at college, riding my bike up the hill to an early morning class. A single-strap bookbag threatens to strangle me as I stand up to crank the pedals, my legs burning, hands tugging backwards on the handlebars. My eyes are bleary from a late night studying business cases and eating cheap pastries pulled from the grocery store discount rack. I'm thinking about the litany of classes waiting ahead, and how there's little chance I'll be able to sneak a nap in between the cracks of my frenetic schedule. I finally pedal up to the bike rack. I drop the bag, lock the bike, then grab my stuff and head for the door of the building.

First order of business: breakfast. Strangely, my usual 6 a.m. bowl of Corn Squares has been replaced by a catered continental spread, replete with poppy seed bread and unpalatable granola smothered in yogurt. My fellow classmates seem oddly grown up, queuing in front of the breakfast donuts and chatting about world events. Something doesn't seem right....

Then it hits me. I'm no longer 19. This isn't the college I attended as an undergraduate. But what am I doing here? What bizarre sequence of events has banished me back to the academic world from whence I came, five years ago, eager to experience the corporate maze?

Eventually I awake out of my fog to realize that I chose to be here at 6:30 a.m. I chose to go back to school. What madness was this?! Goodbye free time! Goodbye family outings! Hello homework! Enter exams!