Yesterday I attended New Transfer Student Orientation at Texas State University. Check-in was from 7-8 am. As I walked into the building, patting myself on the back for being early to assure early bird rewards, I was stopped in my tracks by a line just inside the door, winding its way around the lobby. DAMN, when did generation XY'ers start being so non-passive? I was really relying on the fact that most of them would be rolling out of bed about 7:45 in a summer vacation hung over stupor. Frickin' ambitious children...grumble, grumble.

TSU seperates orientation: freshmen have their own, and transfers have their own. I had looked forward to the fact that perhaps this orientation being transfers, I would be amongst my own: more older folks starting anew then young things in tank tops more interested in finding out about Rush then whether Pre-Cal was still open.

Yippeee...sure, plenty of young'ns, but I certainly saw my fair share of older broads, even some white hairs! My happiness was short lived when I realized that 95% of these people were the students parents. Urgh..

This also leads me to another point to make: transfers are for students with over 30 hours. This means most of these kids are 20 or older. I have one word for these parents: DETACH! In my advising session a father sat with his daughter, answering for her each time a question was asked or something was needed: "well she filled that out...", "she wants to take these classes...". I have to wonder if the man attends her dates with her: "she likes a little less tongue, Bobby"

After checking in, we were supposed to attend a brief "Welcome to TSU..rahrahrah..sure we don't have a great football team and UT next door makes us look like flunkees, but we've got Chick-fil-a in our student union!" lecture...I could care less about this, but there were donuts in that room. I would attend an Amway conference for a free donut.

As I sat there eating my...well chocolate chip muffin, it outweighed the donuts (literally)...I read the orientation schedule. WTF?? We have to go to a different building for advising? WTFF? It's...it's...down the stairs...*gulp* By this I mean that the student union where we were currently at sits at the top of a hill. Down this hill are the library, and further down the hill are all the buildings that house the classes/departments. They try to fool you into thinking that it's not so bad a walk by offering you a few flat areas, followed by flights of stairs. I've walked this once before...in May. I almost passed out. Today's weather forecast was to be a heat index of 102 with 95% humidity. WTFFFF?

However, me gasping and clutching my chest as I climbed the stairs while smiling bouncy kids passed me by was not to be the big humiliation moment of the day.

We were split up into our majors...off I trudged with the English majors. Just one of several orientation sessions, so thankfully there was only about 10 of us. We were arranged around a table, in 70's type big upholstered chairs on rolling casters. Towards the end of our advising, there were about 4 students left, as well as the English dept. head, another big English big-wig, and two of their admins. As I waited impatiently (that will teach me!), I rolled by chair back and forth. One...too..many...times. I rolled the chair backwards, and leaned forward. ZIP...the chair folds in on me. FLAT on my ass I go. The cute guy in the room said, "OH MY GOD." All the advisors are fluttering around me, admin says "oh darn these chairs!" (what? you're telling me this has happened before?! Don't you people know how unhealthy and out of shape most English majors are? We could really hurt ourselves AND the tile!)

I know I'm strange, but I appreciate laughter way over concern or pity. One time while trying to hit a golf ball in front of my bro and hubby, and swinging in a 360 circle TWICE with no connection, I wanted to hit them with the golf club for saying "ok, good try, try again" instead of making fun of me like proper people do. If I had been surrounded by friends, I would have laughed until I wet myself. But I was already concious of my *cough* girth around all these tiny young things, and the thud my ass made as it hit the ground was hardly subtle. Amid coo'ings of "Are you okay?! (please don't sue us)", the only answer I could squeak out of my swollen red face was "my ego's a little bruised."

On the plus side (pun intended), my ass is so well padded that I have no residual tenderness. I cured my embarrassment by calling my loved ones so they could laugh at me like normal people.

The good news from this day is...well, I have to pause to savor the beauty of this. *insert "Chariots of Fire"music* I found out that due to some weird way they code things, I do NOT have to take a Communication/Speech class! Thank you Jeevus, thank you! For some reason a random French class I took (and was cursing for the pointlessness of that credit) counts as a communications credit. No standing in front of a crowd of apathetic sleepy students trying to convince then in 4 minutes with a persuasive speech why Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is far superior to Velveetas Shells and Cheese.

On top of this, the computer system they've spent so much of our fees on, somehow codes my Mass Communications journalism class from 1991 as 3 hours of PE credit. This means I have officially completed TSU requirements of two PE hours in your choice of water aerobics, bowling or other fitness pursuits which are absolutely necessary for a well-rounded English degree.

So four hours later, and down one pride notch, I was officially enrolled in Childrens Lit, Psych, some random sophomore Lit and Spanish III. I have done it...I am on my way. I'm still a little nervous, but I am out of community college, heading towards a bachelor degree in 4-yr...and I still don't know what I'm going to do with it. But I've learned one thing, moving is better then standing still, even if you don't know which way is North.