After the Aftermath

Recap: I went into early labor. I was put on modified bed rest. I birthed a toddler. And yes, that is as painful as that sounds. I recovered. What felt like the minute after I recovered, Mason was being admitted to the hospital for surgery. I had my adorable gall bladder attack literally two hours after he got out of that surgery. Mason recovers. I have surgery. Then, apparently, nothing major or life threatening happened for at least 15 seconds so I decided to start school. At least I had the sense enough to start with only one class (that also has a lab) before jumping directly into the pool of insanity.

Welcome to Rowan-Cabarrus Community College South Campus. The name is so long they don't even bother with bummer stickers. Okay, that's not really true. They just leave off the 'South Campus' part. But they shouldn't. I'm thinking about getting a tattoo of the full name on my upper arm. It would spiral down to my wrist.

So I get there around 4:30 on the night of my first 6pm class because I was told I have to get my student ID made but I couldn't get it made when I came to the campus and signed up for my class and practically gave away my next child to pay for everything. Oh no. I have to come back. With all of my spare time. Obviously. I thought briefly about bringing both of my kids around nap/food time to let them scream it out while I got my pretty picture taken as a punishment for the insane lack of streamlined efficiency we've got going on here. But it made me really tired so I stopped.

So I am there at 4:30 on the second day of classes because there will probably be every cowboy John and their brother getting their ID made. I walk up to the front desk and ask where my class is. Bam. Easy. Then I ask where to get my ID made. I kid you not, these were the directions:

Go through that door over there and down the stairwell. Go straight out of the stairwell and take a right at the hallway. Follow the hallway to the end and take another right. Go past the elevator, through the double doors and through the second set of double doors. At this point you will be outside.

Wait. What? Where exactly are you taking me, lady? She continues...

Follow the path (it was actually a sidewalk but we are in the cun-tree so I was wondering if I should have worn closed toed shoes. or boots.) and go through the double doors. After the next set of double doors, go right and they should be set up in there. Or they might be in room 325.

And then she smiled all pleased with herself. But I'm thinking, why are there so many sets of double doors? We could have just called them 'doors'. Maybe she was worried I would have come to a set of two doors and would have stopped because she only said 'door' instead of explaining the plural-ness of the situation. Lord knows, I would have been stuck in some basement hallway until the end of my days. And I'm totally loving the quick sentence she through in right at the end. Or they might be in room 325. I wasn't even going to ask where that was because my class was due to start in an hour and a half.

I get to the student center (which is where the twenty minutes of directions led me) and get my ID made. Welp, that took all of a minute and a half. It's now 4:45 and my class doesn't start until six. Six. So I look around to see if there is anyone I can sit and make nice with. I see so much acne and so many boobs (some things are worth keeping a mystery, girls) that I just walk back to my car where I make phone calls for the next hour. Super social.

When it's finally late enough that it won't be awkward for me to sit in the classroom, I walk up to the hallway the room is off of and there is a large group of people scattered outside of it. The room is empty and the lights are on so I go for it. This is what any normal person would do in this situation, right? I see nothing spectacular about this. It's unlocked so I walk right on in and pick my seat. Right in the front because mamma don't got no time to waste with this school thing.

About five seconds after I walked in, the huge group of people in the hallway come in, too. The guy who is leading the pack says, "Smart lady. We all just assumed it was locked."

Well. There ya go. I am the official curve wrecker. Why? Because I. Opened. A. Door.

Amazing. I should just quit now and go right to med school.

Only a few things of note happened in the next three hours:

The girl who sat next to me came in with at least half of the seats empty. She walks herself right up to where my backpack is laying on the table and my purse is in the seat and asks if anyone is sitting there. Really? So I move everything so she can sit down. Then she spent the entire three hours of the class telling everyone around her what was going on in her brain. She would answer rhetorical questions, talk to herself and even respond when no one was looking for a response. For instance, the professor said some basic something about something or other and she said, "Yeah, I remember that from last time." Nice.

The professor has about the driest sense of humor I have ever seen in someone. It's wonderful. He seems to be exceptionally knowledgeable to be teaching at a community college so one of the girls in the class asked if he was a doctor. He said no, he was a teacher. She asked if that was all he did and he said, "Well I play some tennis, I golf..." He also said, during his overview of the first and second chapters of our giant book, that  he didn't know why so much chemistry was in there because no one should ever have to memorize it. This guy is great. Oh, and he said the word "penalized" several times except he pronounces it "pee-nal-ized" and I haven't yet figured out if this is serious or a joke. Maybe he just likes saying the word 'penal'.

Nothing else amazing happened. Except, in my student ID, my head looks HUGE. Maybe it's because of my giant brain, being the curve wrecker and all.