Banality in motion

(Warning: If you are currently in college, especially a freshman in college, DO NOT under any circumstances read this post. And if you ignore my warning, as I’m certain you will, I disclaim any responsibility of the possible demise of your college education. Just FYI.)

I don’t know if this is common to every college/university, but mine had a cantankerous jolly good thing called “Freshman Orientation.” You know, the semester-long deal where they teach you the fine art of succeeding in big-bad-college-world. I suppose the intentions behind it were rational enough, but the problem, as I see it, is twofold:

A. No one paid attention in that class. Like, ever.

B. Anyone who actually needed direct instruction on how to thrive in college was either cutting that class, snoring in that class, or lofting airplane notes across that class.

I, of course, was sitting in the back of the auditorium, studiously doodling in my notebook. It’s not called a Bachelor of Arts degree for nothing.

But. If I concentrate particularly hard and do the half-squint thing with my left eye, I can actually recall a few things I “learned” in Freshman Orientation.

For instance, I remember the thing with the jar and the rocks. Oh, and I think there might have been sugar. The jar was our life or our time or something; the rocks were important things like Prob&Stats homework and working our food service shift and volunteering at the Y; the sugar was bowling alley dates, pedicures, and all things fun. And the point was that our jar could fit both the fun and the necessary if we dropped the rocks in first and then poured the sugar.

Me, I just stuck things in as I went along and it all worked out fine. Maybe my jar was big; who knows.

I also remember, quite clearly, the speech about how this is not teen camp and as much as we’d like to, we can’t stay up till two every morning and still pass our classes. I’d have to say this is an outright lie. We were lucky to be sleeping by three, no exaggeration, every night that entire first year. And again, got that Doodling Degree just fine.

Hmmmn. Sadly, that appears to be the sum total of what I learned in that course, and I’m guessing Mum and Dad are at-this-very-moment rejoicing that it was free. But, were it not free, had we paid actual money for it, here’s the one gem of a thing that would’ve made it worth the $500 per credit hour. Are you ready? It’s a beauty:

Freshman Orientation introduced me to C.S. Lewis.

I mean, I knew Lewis, I did the whole Narnia shebang in grade school, but that was just the popsicle tip of a rather profound iceberg.

And I have much more to say about Lewis, but it is late and I still have an avalanche of sewing to return to, and anyhow, this digression has already been—how do I say it?—ah yes, jolly good fun.

So more tomorrow. Do check back. Hey, you can always sit in the back and doodle.