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meeting some women The day started on a sad note. I finally took down my Christmas tree. Yes, I probably broke some kind of social protocol by leaving it up as long as I did, but I just didn't have time to get to it last week. Now it was outside and seeing the tree lying on the snow struck me as sad. I hope that it doesn't stay there too long. Without the tree inside, I had my livingroom back. For the first time in over a month I didn't have to walk around the tree, which felt very odd. I've only been here three months and for one of them the tree was a daily fixture of the decor. Now it was gone and all that was left was pine needles. Soon those were sucked up into the vacuum and everything was wide open. ... I had been having doubts about school, but today all of that changed and I couldn't be happier. After a quick drive to the east side of Milwaukee, I found myself back on campus walking a familiar stretch of sidewalk. I was early and wanted to see if I could talk with my professor from last semester. I wanted to get my final paper from her. Fifteen pages of me is certainly something that I want to keep. Yes, I already have a copy on file, but that one doesn't have her comments on it. Whatever professional feedback that I can get on my writing is well worth my time. Naturally once I got to her office she wasn't there. With about twenty minutes left before class, I headed over to the bookstore only to discover that everyone else was there as well. I have a feeling that the bookstore was closed on Monday due to MLK. As I was standing in the English aisle, I saw a face that I knew starting to walk past me. I gave her a nudge and said hey. I couldn't remember her real name, but it was Miss Zealot from last spring. She looked exactly the same in her overalls that accent her perfectly. She recognized me and we played catch up for a few minutes. She was still doing theatre and I could just feel the energy pouring out of her as we talked. The woman screams drama whenever I talk with her and I was genuinely pleased to see her. With my time running out I headed back to the classroom and took a seat. A few people were there and others started to trickle in as the minutes went by. Something felt wrong as I was sitting there and I couldn't explain it. Then something odd happened. A girl hobbled in on crutches. She said hey to her friend Judy and then quickly realized that the girl she spoke to wasn't her friend. She then sat down close to me and thought that she spotted Judy on this side of the class. Once again she was wrong. I found all of it to be very strange and I felt bad for her. The two girls did look alike, but it still seemed funny. Then the crutches girl asked me if I ever had so and so for an instructor before and I said no. The name that she mentioned didn't sound familiar to me. Some more minutes passed and we waited for the professor to arrive. Class was supposed to start and he still hadn't arrived. I went to get a drink of water to kill some time and he still wasn't there when I got back. Finally he walked through the door looked around and started talking. At first I thought that I was hearing him wrong, but I quickly realized that he was speaking Spanish. Then at that very moment I knew that I was in the wrong class. Thankfully I was at the very back of the room and quietly made my way out without speaking to anyone. I paused for a moment outside the door trying to think of what to do next when I noticed that this girl was right behind me. She asked me where I was supposed to be and I said The History of English and she said that that was where she was supposed to be too. Names were exchanged and we made our way to the elevator and up to the department office to see where the class had been moved. Nice tight winter sweater and flared jeans, standard wear for a college girl in Wisconsin, but she looked and smelled good too. Soon we knew where we were supposed to be and headed back down in the elevator. When we got to the floor where we started we were joined by three other people who had been sent to the wrong room. We told them that we knew the right room and led the way to the right room, which was in another building on the other side of campus. Soon we were in the other building and right room. The professor thought that we had gotten lost and apologized for the confusion when we explained that we had been given the wrong room on our transcripts. Okay, maybe getting lost and being late on the first day of class may not be the best way to start a new semester, but it was also the most exciting thing that had happened to me in a long time. I also felt a certain vibe from the girl who followed me out of the first classroom.
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