The day after something started.

I went to my first session of "English 1" yesterday. I was nervous. I took a "plumcot" as a snack. I turned off my phone and panicked a little. I found a typo in the syllabus. I realized that my professor, who is probably at least ten years younger than me, resembles every man I had a crush on and/or dated or almost married from the age of 14 to the age of 22. He's probably a Leo. I can tell. 

The question of his attractiveness aside, I think this is going to be a fun class for me. We're going to be reading a lot (the full title of the class is "Reading and Comprehension") and writing a lot, and I like those things.

Except for one other guy, who like me, is returning to school after a long absence, the rest of the class is straight out of high school. Maybe some of them have taken other college courses. We went around the room and introduced ourselves. 

The professor made suggestions of the types of things we might say: where we work, the last film we saw, a book we hated, a “fun fact.” “The Lion King” was a movie some of my classmates watched recently. Also “Beauty and the Beast.” Also, the last “Despicable Me” movie. So many of the kids in the class responded with, “I don’t read books.” One guy only reads manga. More than one person had read so few books that to find one about which they held any feelings at all was impossible. One girl only reads “self-help” books but when she described one (because she couldn’t think of a title) it turned out that what she really only reads is true crime. True crime is way cooler than self-help. More than one person decided to talk about a book they loved: “Night,” by Elie Wiesel. Now. That’s a great book. But do you “love it”? No. No one LOVES that book. That book gives you nightmares. That book makes you cry. That book crushes you and then brings you back to life like a butterfly is blowing on your wings.

(I shared some of this description with a friend of mine, and he didn't quite get the last sentence there. It really doesn't make any sense. I just like the picture. I want a butterfly to re-inflate my wings. Maybe a team of butterflies.)

The cool part is, our professor didn't seem judgmental about any of these answers, and if it seems as if I am, I apologize. I didn't mean for it to sound that way. Honestly, I was just happy to have felt like talking about it. 

My next class is Wednesday. We're supposed to read three movie reviews by A.O. Scott. I googled them last night and realized I had already read two of them in the New York Times. Didn't see any of the movies, though.

It felt good to be back in a classroom. I really appreciated it. Is that the right way to say it? I can't wait to get to work.