It's hip to be square

More ridiculous transportation juggling – I had to take my bike in for a few minor repairs, but I also had to go to campus early enough before our official orientation so that I could get my ID card to get into the library later for our tour (after all of this wrangling it turned out I didn’t need my ID – sigh), so we got everyone out the door on bikes. I rode to school while Chris loaded Kalian into the bike trailer and Liam on his bike over to Lev’s to drop Liam off at Lev’s before Lori picked them up for preschool camp at Jack’s (and then Liam had to go back to Lev’s before I could pick him up) – then Chris dropped off Kalian at Yokmi’s – parked the bike/trailer next to the soc bldg and then had to find me to give me the bike lock keys – turned out the horrible line I had heard about to get an ID was also not so terrible, so I had plenty of time before I had to take my bike to the MissingLink. I had spent way too much time fretting over what to wear that morning – the first time I would meet the entire cohort – and all of the staff in the dept. – just as importantly, I had my ID photo taken – my Harvard one was not so great, and I figured for five years, I better like my photo, so I spent a lot of time in line, putting on lipstick, combing my hair, etc. – and the photo was small and TERRIBLE – I’m not exaggerating – it made me look exactly like my worst fears – a middle-aged woman trying to look young. Oh, well. By the time I returned from the ML – it was about time to head into our orientation I trekked into the bathroom to do another mirror check – I ran into a wonderful woman from my cohort – I felt embarrassed with all of the make-up/primping, but I felt even more self-conscious when she introduced me to another student in our cohort, who had apparently been in line behind me waiting for my ID and witnessed all of the primping. Sigh.

The orientation was filled with the usual logistics – where to get keys, where the bathrooms are, where our surprisingly small study areas are (we don’t even get our own desk space!) – but what was most noticeable was how we were all checking each other out (or maybe it was just me) – everyone looked so young!!! OK, I promise, I’ll get over the old/mother thing eventually – but I just have to get this off of my chest (that btw, I got bike lock grease all over – a white shirt that day – why on earth did I wear white?). We all had the usual chit chat before our library tour and during lunch. My head was spinning so much with the newness/stress, that I took in virtually nothing during the tour – except to be so happy that our dept has our very own librarian (ok, so he probably has other responsibilities), but I love librarians!

But the best part of the day was when the other 20 students about that year of age – were talking about what they were doing that night. I casually mentioned that I was going to the Wilco concert – what, someone said, it’s sold out. Yeah, I have tickets – ok, maybe I’m not as much of an old fart as I worry about.