The Pink Shoe Diaries

i had my first day of classes today, which of course would not have been complete without parking snafus and incredible coincidences. the parking snafu was due to the absolute and utter LACK of parking at umass. i arrived around 11:20 to find that there was no parking on campus at which point i was directed by flourecent-orange-wearing-emphatically-gesturing Parking Prick to the Bayside Expo parking lot which was also considerably full where i was further directed to yet another parking lot even farther away and told that they do not, in fact, accept the UMB Parking Pass I posess for which I paid $80. I explain to the Parking Prick that I bought it at school and it is valid through September 31, and since this is, in fact, a UMB parking lot then it should count. He directed me back to school, and when I pointed out that I had class in about five minutes and did not have time to fix the problem right now (which would not have BEEN a problem had this man not been an inbred ape), he replied "not my problem" at which point I hurled expletives out of the window at him and sped off, hurtling gravel in his direction with my spinning wheels and narrowly missing the broken down limo behind me. Charming. I then proceeded to blow past the cop who was blocking parking on the Lower Garage and found a suitably legal albeit tiny space in which to wedge my car and then ran teetering on my new BCBG heels fo African Studies 150. 20 minutes late on the first day: WORD. Luckily, Professor Azouyne likes only people who 1) have read more of Achebe's work than simply Things Fall Apart and 2) have been to Africa... so I am in there like proverbial swimwear.

The incredible coincidence part of the day lies in the fact that the girl sitting behind me, who looked stunningly familar although I could not place her face), not only was in the same City Year corps with me during the same year, but was on my roomate Zoe's team! Oh City Year, I will never escape thee. So we of course spent the end of class gosipping about fellow corps members: who lives where, who is married, who was masochistic enough to remain a staff mamber at CY and so on.

Considering I was only on campus for a short period of time today (I only have 1 class on Tues/Thus), I managed to run into basically everyone I know, including a man with whom I have a stranger and stranger relationship as time goes on.

Sophomore Year: I meet him, am awed by his intellectual grandeur and intimidated by his envy-inducing vocabulary
Junior Year: Am over it. Am sickened by his pretentiousness, his propensity to sh*t on my maddeningly clever insights, and his ability to relate Faulkner to Picasso. Shoot death glares at the back of his head in class.
Last Semester: He approaches me after Fic. Workshop to comment on my piece and glowingly approve of it. Immediately pictiure what our children would look like, as I do with all men who like my writing.
This Semester: We meet in the hall and discover that although we are english majors, neither of us are taking any english classes this semester, and in fact we are in two of the same extremely random classes. He asks for my cell # and I give it to him, knowing full well that since I am in 2 of his class instead of the usual 1, I will be unbearably tired of him by October.

All in all a good first day though, Tomorrow I have my three other classes, one of which I am know i will drop because I mistakenly though I was ready for French 301, but after reading the website for the class which is entirely en francais I am suddenly aware that I can't speak or write in anything but the past and present tense.