Inauspicious Start

Let me preface this post by swearing that I am, in fact, a functionally intelligent being. I can tie my own shoes, tell time, and even clean my house without creating lethal chemical combinations. However, rookie errors have plagued my first week at the new Grad School. I've managed to sign up for classes located at all corners of the campus, giving me the opportunity to sprint three times every other day. For now, this is simply good cardio-vascular exercise. But I'm the sort of person who breaks bones in the comfort of her own home, while doing things like painting the living room. Within two months the combination of my own native spastic tendencies, the piles of snow I expect at this latitude, and these sprints might just prove dangerous to my health. Good thing I brought my crutches with me.

I've also managed to sign up for a class taught by a professor renowned for his brilliant but dithery lectures, and almost satanic grading system. Fabulous. Nothing like knowing that the information you're given will be unclear, while the standards set for your scholarship--based partly on that unclear information--are frighteningly high, to make a new student feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

But the capper, the absolute "Damn it, woman, get a grip on yourself" moment came in my final class of the day; a hagiography course I've been dying to take since I saw the offerings. I know something about hagiography, and I've been reading new scholarship so that I could hit the ground running when I got to school this semester. And I'll swear any oath required that I had an intelligent, pertinent thought to add to the discussion. Until I opened my mouth. Somehow, my lips conspired against me so that my intelligent, pertinent thought came out something like, "I was reading this article...uh... and it was about a similar situation... uh, yeah ... except different." And I received the professor's pitying smile in return, the one that says "Let's all be patient with the stupid girl." Which is really the best possible scenario considering the blockheaded thing I said.


However, contrary to my concerns, my fellow grad students are extremely friendly, and I may even get some of them to sit with me at lunch. Because stupid people need supervision.