So. I should probably be doing homework right now, but I just did some physics so I'm in a relatively good mood. I'll probably buckle down and work on chemistry for a bit after I post this.
Chemistry? Yeah, chemistry! I know I said before I was taking biology, but as it turns out that didn't work with my schedule, which is great for me because I don't even like biology. I'll have to take it next term though. Woe is me. Who cares, though, as long as I get to take physics, math, AND chemistry all in the same term?
Allow me to recount for you the dramatic events of my first day of MIT classes. To further immerse you in the narrative, this will be written in the present tense. To give me a chance to have some fun, it will be written over-dramatically and in stilted prose. (Just thought I should warn you.)
7:51 AM. Thunder crashes outside the window I fortuitously closed last night, waking me before my alarm clock gets the chance. I peer out the window with still-blurred eyes, to see rain pouring down outside. (This is an auspicious beginning for the day. After all, children born during storms in stories are often marked for some greater destiny. Why not those who start college during a storm?) Combing through my mind to try and remember where I put my umbrella, I prepare myself for the day ahead. Where are my notebooks? I realize to my shock that I have none. Check the schedule again. There will be time between physics and chemistry.
I hastily toast some bread for breakfast and leave with it; the time between my awakening and my necessary departure seeming to have slipped away without my noticing. The storm has passed by the time I leave my dorm, and the sky has brightened--another auspicious sign; overcast skies usually foreshadow tragedy of some sort.
I arrive at the building of my physics class, check the room number on my "schedule" (in reality nothing more than my hastily scribbled list of classes, locations, and times) and eventually find my way to it. One slight problem presents itself before I even walk in the door: The classroom does not exist. Perhaps one of the students accidentally divided by zero? Idle jokes will get me nowhere. If there were a computer anywhere nearby, I could check the class location online. But no such machine is readily available. Finally I give in to temptation and use the Internet access on my cell phone, a technique normally forbidden as I do not have a data plan which includes the cost of said access.
The risk pays off. I find myself in an underground chamber (the classroom is in the basement) filled with round tables. Already late, I take an empty seat where I can find it.
Then the lecture begins. It starts as nothing of note, logistical announcements and basic review. Then, as an indication of things to come, Maxwell's equations appear on the projector screen. I stare, entranced. Until today, I had never realized how stunning they were, how mysterious at first and then beautiful. Every curve of every integral sign calls out to me. And I realize I've forgotten how much I love physics.
A longer break this time, enough for me to eat and relax in my room for a while. Then comes the high point of the day. (If a math lecture at the end of an exciting day of classes is not the definition of the word "apotheosis", I don't know what is.) Differential Equations, finally. I look at the syllabus. Within a few weeks, we will learn topics I have never been exposed to. Some of these techniques are things I've never even heard of.
I emerge from the lecture hall, euphoric.
(N.B. Euphoric is another of those words which deserves to be used, but not too often or it will lose its meaning.)
Well, hopefully that little narrative satisfies; I have chemistry homework to do.
Yeah, chemistry.
Hope your second day of classes was nearly as euphoric as your first. My favorite part of your post is that chemistry is "down to earth". Very cute!
ReplyDeleteGeuss what I'm doing in science! Chemistry? Yeah chemistry!
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