Back to school: While We’re Waiting…

Happy Wednesday, Blawg Pound. Can you feel it? Can you smell it? Can you hear it? That faint bite in the air, the rustling of notebooks in still-stiff backpacks, the diesel fumes from yellow buses shaking off the rust — it’s back to school season. The first day of school is a wonderful thing. It’s a time of opportunity and possibility, a the first page of a coloring book yet to be filled. My first and only nephew went to his first-ever day of kindergarten this week. The poor boy lives in Pittsburgh, and thus I fear that he has already been taught every permutation of the word yinz, but still: the first day of school is a big one.

For the parents among you, I imagine the first day of school is nerve-wracking. Your little boy or girl is off, and alone, and you can’t protect them. They get on that school bus and wave goodbye, and all you can do is hope that they have nice teachers and nice classmates and nice nutritious lunches. For more experienced parents among you, I imagine the first day of school coincides with plenty of deep breaths and, if you’re really lucky, a nap.

For the students among you, the first day of school can also be nerve-wracking, particularly at a new school. There’s no feeling quite as vulnerable as being the new kid, and in my limited experience that doesn’t change too much when you join the ranks of so-called adults.

With that, I have some back to school advice (read: stuff I didn’t do that I imagine would have been helpful) for the student readers out there. It applies most pertinently to those venturing off to college, but perhaps kernels will apply to those of all ages.

I’m gonna cheat for the first one, as it is not my original thought whatsoever:

the best advice my dad gave me was wait until after the 1st wk of school to wear your new clothes cuz then youre the only one in new clothes

— Shea Serrano (@SheaSerrano) August 19, 2015

That is a darn sound piece of advice. Looking fresh is a big first step in establishing your dominance. Now for some more:

Go to class. It’s extraordinarily simple. Just go to class, and you’ll probably be fine. Perhaps you’re going to a very prestigious, very challenging school with a tremendous number of very smart people. The formula doesn’t change. Just show up, and you’re ahead of the curve. The worst thing you can do is skip that first class, because you can probably get away with one. I skipped a class or two early on in an entry level psych class in college, got a B+ on the first exam, and promptly decided that my innate brilliance would be all I needed to breeze through this whole higher education thing. In a related story, I finished a 100-level communications class with a D+ because I decided I was above it and that I only needed to show up on every other full moon. In a related story, I look forward to resuming diplomatic relations with my parents.

Do stuff. Not heroin or meth or anything — good stuff; activities and whatnot. Join a club, join a team, join a biker gang, just join something. Find an outlet for something you care very much about, or try something you’ve never tried before. Best case, you have a super good time and make friends and learn skills. Worst case, you realize that whatever that thing is sucks and you don’t want to do it. Figuring out what you don’t want to do is just as valuable as figuring out what you do want to do. Had I gotten off my lazy behind and written for a newspaper or a magazine in college, perhaps I would have started writing in this space years earlier.

Date people. This is in the same vein as the do stuff bit. Spending some time with potential romantic interests is important because you need to figure out what sort of people you’re attracted to and enjoy spending your time with. You may have a vision of a dream guy or gal, only to find that that ideal turns out to be super lame. Look outside the box a little bit. Have conversations, including those not in a bar, and try to suss out the ones that get you going. If you’re worried that you’re too shy or you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re probably exactly right. Go for it anyway. That’s the starting line for this sort of thing.

Figure out what size clothes you wear. The fit of a garment matters just as much as its design. I wore shirts at least a size too big for at least five years too long. I was comfortable, yes, but I also looked a bit like a coat rack holding a deployed parachute. Try out the whole date people thing, gentlemen, and you’ll probably come across someone who will point that sort of thing out to you. From then on, you’re gonna like the way you look.¹

Don’t smoke. Just don’t do it. Don’t get addicted, anyway. It’s the rudest habit there is. Here you are, with all your nice new friends, and you’re making them wait for you seven minutes at a time and making their stuff smell like crap and shaving seconds off their lives in the process. Don’t smoke, because the worst thing about becoming a smoker is that you’ll probably become a self-loathing smoker, and the only thing worse than a self-loathing smoker is a self-loathing smoker who writes about it. Those people are the worst. Or so I’ve heard.

Have fun. Do you, baby. Find the stuff you like to do, find the people you like to do that stuff with, and ball out. Work hard and play hard. Whatever you’re doing, do it the best you can. Realize that everyone is too tied up with their own stuff to worry about yours, and be liberated by that. Don’t be a complete idiot or anything, but act freely and maximize every last experience.

There will be times when you feel like you’re stuck in a certain place, and that’s fine. Do the most you can with it. Heed the words of Don from Dazed and Confused, and everything else will work itself out.

Have a good day at school or work, gang. Be safe out there.

1. I guarantee it. [↩]