(no subject)

[felicula]

OMG, I'm a clueless little Freshmen! Well I am, and I'm not at the same time...

I had the same kind of nervous tention and uncertainty that I did when I went to college for the first time. Except this time I was more prepared than I ever was in all my four-and-a-half years at SUNY Oswego, and this was just orientation. Yeah, I was the dork with the bulging backpack just for orientation. Leave it to me to make homemade pizzas to take for lunch, only to find out that lunch was being provided.

I was gladdened to find out that my professor for my Career and Life Planning class is the same person I saw for advisement. She also gave a great talk during the program's opening. She's probably about my age, too. That's both disarming and disturbing to me.

I got lots of exercise walking around campus on the peer mentor group tours, though I'm glad for the early tour from dawnstar. I did see some places I hadn't seen before. I also got to talk with some of the other incoming students on the way around and during lunch.

I asked questions. I spoke up. I had (duh duh duhhhhhhhhh) enthusiasm.

After lunch they had a mentalist performance for us. Robert Channing, I believe his name was. At least he was honest. At the end of the show, he announced that it was 35% showmanship, 35% ESP, 20% mental skills, and 10% dumb luck. I come from an interesting perspective on that. I know enough about theatre, showmanship, and psychological tricks to spot those when they're happening. Some of the rest could be explainable by photographic memory if he has that. A couple small times toward the end he flubbed. Being both a believer in certain phenomena as well as a skeptic, I still do believe that there was some real extra-sensory perception going on.

That, and I'm not the only person who got a reverberating headache from being in the audience for that show. Damnitol, I need to work on controlling my shielding better. I'm out of practice.

I now have my photo ID and my books, too. The whole day, and especially getting those really gave me the kick in the gut that I'm really a student again. Not I'm going to be, I am.

I'm liking my books. My Stress Management book comes with two relaxation CDs. My Photography book looks fascinating. The Career and Life Planning book is rather unassuming. Since the bulk of that class is likely self and career exploration, that's not surprising. I'm not certain whether my section of COM 104 needed the book that was there or not. If I don't need it, I'll take it back. In the meantime I was in better-safe-than-sorry mode.

And then there's the History of Reincarnation books. Three of them. When I got home, I cracked open Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss, M.D. and was barely able to put it down again until I'd finished reading it. Granted, it's not a textbook per se. It's only 219 pages in a comfortable font size written in a relaxed style. If anyone reading this is even vaguely interested in reincarnation, it is a book I'd recommend at least reading a little of.

The other two I paged through the indices of. Reincarnation The Phoenix Fire Mystery, Compiled and Edited by Sylvia Cranston seems like a straightforward textbook-style collection of information. Imagining Karma Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth, by Gananath Obeyesekere looks like something that would be happier in a 400 to 500 level course in a four-year school that it would in a 200 level community college classroom. It's like easy, medium, and difficult all in one class.

I am both intimidated and absolutely delighted by the prospect. At least I've read Easy once through already! I anticipate Reincarnation not giving me much trouble, but just from the index alone I can tell that I'll be learning a whole lot more vocabulary from Imagining Karma.

I'm now rather eager to meet the professor. I'm hoping he has the personality to go along with the vibrancy of the subject matter. I want to ask him whether he chose to teach the class, and why he chose these particular textbooks, and and and and and....

Here I am all excited again, and it's only the beginning of the week... I still have tomorrow evening's returning adult seminar to attend, and Wednesday's road test to try to calm down for. It's an interesting balance beam between preparation and grounding. I think tomorrow night I'm going to want some time spent near my favorite old oak in the part of Maplewood Park closest to the end of my street.

Comments

[skrshawk.livejournal.com]

wow... seems like you're getting a lot more than I am out of the deal... I wasn't aware there were any more scheduled orientations left, for new or returning adult students.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

I signed up for orientation way back when they first sent out the cards listing when they all were. Perhaps the orientations filled up. The returning adult workshop flier came in the mail. You're going to be taking classes in the fall too?