Oh back to school, back to school, to prove to Dad I'm not a fool..." --Billy Madison

I'm not gonna lie. I got a little sad as I dropped the boy off at work this morning and drove past the line of vans and trucks packed to the max with the essentials of dorm living--blow up furniture and mini-fridges for beer storage. That will never be me again. Granted, I don't mind living in my newly built split level with my own bathroom and kitchen, but there's something really great about living in a place where you get woken up every night at 3am by someone vomiting in the hallways. Then seeing that same vomit for the next three weeks because the maintenance people leave it there to teach us all a lesson.

And I won't be returning as a grad student/teacher-poser either. Unlike the third years and folks with real jobs, I'm not scrambling to put together syllabi and lesson plans. I'm not worried about the twenty-five pairs of eyes that will soon focus squarely on me (really, after discounting those checking their email or just generally not paying attention, there were about three pairs of eyes at any given time). I don't have to pay a small fortune on books I'll only pretend to read and then fabricate a fantastic response paper for. Nuh-uh. I don't get any of that. For the first time since I started kindergarten, I am not going back to school in the fall. You see, I've been trying to trick myself into believing this is not true. I bought new jeans, a couple new tops, and I even picked out a few new notebooks in a variety of colors. I cleaned out my backpack and placed it by the door, packed with newly sharpened pencils and pens in eight colors. Yes, I thought I had myself fooled, but I don't have a class schedule or a stack of overpriced books. I don't have that giddy feeling that comes with knowing I'll be using my brain again soon. I don't have a list of books I should have read this summer so I could have a little headstart.

And I know how this makes me sound. Am I a nerd? Of course. I don't deny that. But it leaves me with a very empty feeling. School was always my thing. I was the smart one (stop laughing!). And now there's just something missing. Maybe I'll take up stamp collecting.