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September 9, 2004

My Last First Day Of School

Barring some unforeseen act of extreme self-indulgence that
would lead me to seek an additional graduate degree, Wednesday
September 8, 2004 was OFFICIALLY my last first day of school.
SIGH. My mother will be very excited to know that I snapped a
photo of myself before walking out the door (using the always
amusing "reach those arms out and point the camera back at
myself" method), allowing her to add it to her collection. My
haven't I grown!

My schedule this semester is rather Wednesday-heavy; I start at
8:15 a.m. and go straight through to 6:15 p.m. with
fifteen-minute breaks every 90 minutes or so. I didn't so much
plan it that way -- it just worked out that most of the classes I was
really excited about were on Wednesdays. For the first day, this
meant that I was starting WAY earlier than I had even been
awake over the past month or so (this being my Last Summer
Vacation Ever). As such, my type-A paranoia led me to be extra
prepared for this first day -- it simply wouldn't do to show up late
for my last first day of school.

Getting up wasn't a problem (I was out of bed by alarm 2 of 4!).
Making coffee wasn't a problem (I reheated some from the day
before -- note my frugality!). Fixing myself a delicious pork
sandwich wasn't a problem (no shame in a pork sandwich).
Noticing that it was raining outside and remembering to grab an
umbrella wasn't a problem (and I blow that one a lot more
frequently than potential employers should ever know). I even
wore a belt.

Class started at 8:15. I was out the door at 7:51. Average travel
time to school = 16 minutes. I was sitting pretty.

I slogged across Amsterdam Avenue, mildly annoyed that the
bottom of my jeans were getting wet -- knowing that they'd likely
remain damp throughout the morning class. Booo. As I bounded
down the steps at the subway station, I heard a train screeching
to a stop. Excellent. As I rounded the corner at the bottom of
the stairwell, I noticed people getting off the train, but no one
getting on. Uh oh. Turns out this was the last stop -- the
conductor dude mumbled something about water on the tracks up
ahead and trains not running.

Crap. Stupid Force Majeure was threatening my
not-being-late-for-the-first-day plans! I trooped up the steps and
to the bus stop with everyone else. Quite a crowd waiting for
that bus. Hmmm. My umbrella wasn't entirely getting the job
done, so I planted myself in a urine-scented service doorway (we'll
be optimistic and say it wasn't human urine, though I don't so
much know how that's actually optimistic) and waited.

At 8:13, a bus arrived. I was resigned to being late at this point,
but still felt I had a fighting shot at a respectable arrival time, since
I assumed a lot of people would be delayed. As I was unwilling to
elbow some families with small children out of the way, I didn't
make it onto the first bus. More waiting for me.

At 8:24, another bus arrived. This one was even more packed.
Three people got on. I wasn't one of them. Although I was most
certainly enjoying watching the "new person arrives at station,
disregards warnings from fellow rain-soaked travelers at the bus
stop, descends into subway station only to sheepishly re-emerge a
minute later to wait with the rest of us schlubs" routine, my
prospects of getting to school at even a reasonable time were
really in doubt. The Broadway bus plan looked pretty hopeless.
Time to try Amsterdam.

Amsterdam wasn't much better. A bus came and went, taking on
a half dozen additional passengers. I wasn't one of them.

8:33. Hmmm. Decision time. I could hang out and get soaked at
the bus stop -- interrupted by the occasional monkey-knife-fight
with my fellow citizens for the right to get on one of these buses
-- or I gird my loins and walk it. I recognized that walking it could
"suck pretty fiercely" but sitting around absorbing raindrops (my
umbrella was pretty overmatched at this point; also the rain was
falling roughly sideways) was hurting my feelings. F*ck it. I'm
walking.

I was off, thrity-five blocks of deluged Broadway between me and
getting to walk into my first class an hour late! Awesome!

The eighties were pretty uneventful, save for the cluster of
drenched commuters clustered around the 86th St. subway
station and a near wreck with some woman pushing a stroller WAY
too quickly around the corner of 88th and Broadway (baby on
board, my dear, slow down!).

It was 8:46 when I hit 90th street. Not a dry-weather pace (my
assumption under decent conditions is a block per minute), but
not bad. Somewhere in the low 90s I saw two older women
fighting over a cab. Not just arguing, but actually physically
engaged with each other and shouting; the cabbie ended up
refusing them both (Go Cosmic Justice!). And yes, this was a
moment where I was reminded of the fragility of civility in New
York, that the City is maybe two hours of subway delay away from
going Lord-of-the-Flies and consuming itself. We handled terrorism
with aplomb (too cool/ tough for that), but take away the 1-9
train and suddenly the Upper West Side becomes Thunderdome!

Above 96th Street I spotted two folks from my school (you can
pick us out by our school-issued shoulder bags) who seemed to be
walking as well. Nice. I would have some traveling companions. I
said hello, we exchanged "oh you have that bag too thus you
must be a friendly" glances and I asked them what class they were
missing.

"Oh, we don't have class until 10."

"Really?"

"We just wanted to make sure we were on time."

I looked at my watch. 8:55. There are moments when I feel like
I really don't belong at business school. Not that I can't dig the
classes (those are great), but that I am a fundamentally different
personality type than the rest of my classmates. Moments when I
think that I just do not fit the b-school profile, and that the
admissions office would have done us all a favor by politely refusing
my application. This was one of those moments. These poltroons
were trudging through the rain to make sure they weren't late for
a class that didn't start for another hour? I didn't even say
goodbye. I just kicked it into fifth and dusted them within a block.

Then came the dark times. The lonely times. Mostly I just cursed
under my breath and acted generally passive aggressive.

To this point, I had done a relatively decent job of avoiding most
of the larger puddles. Sure, I was sopping wet up top (my
umbrella have just thrown its fourth interception to the rain), but
if I could keep my feet relatively dry then the ten hours I had to
spend at school might not be completely unbearable. But the
puddles were getting larger, my jeans were drenched, and my
shirt was pretty much soaked through.

At 104th Street I gave up on avoiding the minor puddles.

By 111th Street I was over avoiding the puddles at all. It was
going to be a long wet day.

By 9:09 I made it to the front of Uris Hall, and the biggest puddle I
had seen yet. It was like the final boss on an NES side scroller. It
was at least four inches deep and for all practical purposes,
impassible. To get around it, I would have to go around a large
hedged-in area (at least another 60 yards round-trip), followed by
what looked like the opportunity to ford twenty yards of
two-inch-deep puddle to get to the door. I was already soaked
through my clothes (you could even see my nipples!), about to be
an hour late for my first day of school, and feeling more than a
small bit cross. Backtracking? Ain't gonna happen.

Splish splash. And that about wraps it up for dry feet for the next
nine hours.

At 9:12, I walked through the classroom door. The professor was
super-cool (I wasn't the only person who was late this morning,
though I appeared to be one of the wettest), and my classmates
were kind: someone tossed me some paper towels and another
offered me a dry spare t-shirt. One assclown -- aspiring Day One
to prove his worth as a potential class funnyguy, and thus one of
the more odious creatures one will encounter in business school,
and trust me, that's saying a lot -- thought he'd seize the
opportunity to grandstand at my expense.

"Still raining out there?" [Am I funny or what?]

"Yes." [I long to cut you.]

And so I settled in for my first day of school, soaked to the bone,
my shoes filled with water, worried that my computer had
absorbed water through my bag (luckily it survived the journey).
Last First Day of School, lay it on me!

Also, my classes were nice.

Posted by thatkid at September 9, 2004 8:26 PM under MBAwesome!

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