The first time it caught up to me, I woke up in a lecture hall all by myself.
Within 48 hours of arriving at Penn State, I found 20 new like-minded friends.
Wanna walk downtown? Yes!
Wanna play softball? Yes!
Wanna explore campus? Yes!
Beer? Yes!
Wanna hang out and listen to music till 3am? Yes!
Oh, you’re a hockey player? Wanna play on my team? Yes!
OK, all normal stuff, but what wasn’t normal was the sheer quantity of opportunity and the complete lack of understanding of when to say “no.” I did it all. Except study.
And over that first month, I found my schedule slowly skewing later and later. Eleven pm bed became 1 am bed, which became 3 am bed. But my class schedule was full of 8 am classes.
Econ 14 — Principles of Economics. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 8 am in the Biotech building in a lecture hall with 150 other students. There I was, sleeping like a log during the lecture.
I don’t know what the end of that lecture looked like, but in my head, 150 students tip-toed out of the lecture hall, pointing and snickering at me. Maybe it was the professor’s idea. Or maybe nobody really noticed, and they just left normally.
Regardless, I woke with a start and I was the only one in the room. Completely empty except for me. I looked at my watch — class ended twenty minutes ago. I was late for my next one.
In a pool of spit and solitary embarrassment, I found my first lesson about how to learn. I’d need to get a handle on my schedule. No more 8 am classes if I could avoid them, and if I had to take one, I’d better take it seriously the night before.
Sometimes, I’ll have to say no to fun.
