The First Year

Chapter 1

*bzzzzz*

*bzzzzz*

My 8:30 AM alarm could not be more intrusive. I flail my arm above my head, in the general direction of my desk, and grasp for my cell phone that, for the love of god, will not stop buzzing. At this point, I'm sure I've woken up my roommate.

Ah well, fuck it.

When my fingers finally close around my phone, I unlock it as fast as I can to alleviate the incessant buzzing. Once I've taken care of that problem, I look around and adjust my eyes to the unfamiliar setting around me.

Where am I?

Ah, yes. The Dorm Room.

I moved in last week. It took three giant and two small suitcases to haul all of my belongings up here from Austin. After three days of unpacking, organizing, and eating takeout Chinese in a comfy hotel room, my parents left me, all alone, to fend for myself in this massive, daunting city. New York.

Ever since they left, I've been too depressed to eat. Not that I'm complaining, really. I've already lost 5 pounds. New York is cool and all (at least the 5 days I've been here have been), but leaving home was hard. 18 years worth of memories and family and friends and life, all left behind in Texas. Do other people have such a difficult time moving away for college? Granted, most people don't move 4,000 miles away...

Regardless, New York University was my top choice. The program I'm in is small and I'm taking some pretty cool classes, so why should I be upset? Oh, you know, just that whole moving-away-from-the-place-and-the-people-I-called-home-my-entire-life thing.

Back to reality.

Today is the first day of classes, and if I don't get up, get ready, and haul ass out of here, I'll be late.

Twenty minutes later I'm out the door and making my way towards my first class of the day, some seminar on 1970s punk rock culture. Even though it's, you know, school, I'm actually pretty excited. All my life I've only ever taken the classes that everyone else took, generic subjects like Chemistry and English and Algebra. For the first time in my education, I get to take a very specific, individualized class on something that isn't so mainstream. This is why I wanted to go to NYU in the first place.

I'm five minutes away from the building my class is in and I'm starting to get nervous. What If I can't make any friends? What is everyone is standoffish? Or worse...what if everyone is smarter than me? What if the class is too hard? Or too boring? What if the professor sucks?

Okay, okay. Breathe.

I open the heavy doors of the building and show the security guard my student ID, then make my way downstairs to room 023. I check the time.

9:28

Right on time. I slip my phone into my pocket then push open the classroom door.

Inside there's one long conference table, with about 20 wheeled chairs scattered around it. Already there are 15 students sitting down. I smile to no one in particular, then choose a seat towards the back of the room. I hardly have time to set my backpack down before the professor sweeps into the room.

"Hello, students! Happy first day of class. What time is it?"

The room is so silent you could hear a pin drop.

"9:29," says a girl in the back, once she realizes no one else is going to speak up.

"Ah, good," the professor says. "I'll wait another minute until everyone is here."