Vainglorious Vicissitudes

So, here I am on campus for the first time in months, running around trying to figure out my schedule. I show up late to my first couple of classes and find the classrooms empty. This is mildly puzzling, but then I figure maybe since it's the first day they just covered a few administrative things and then let out early. However, when I arrive at my last class right before it's supposed to start and find no one there and the room in darkness, I start to freak out just a little. I mean, I've been known to get the room number copied down wrong, but three times in one day? This is starting to resemble one of those nightmares where you can't find any of your classes and then you realize you're not wearing pants--which I used to have all the time, minus the pants part, even though I was never the slightest bit anxious about the first day of school in real life. (And now that school does make me anxious, I seem to have stopped having those nightmares. I don't understand my subconscious at all.)

Then a sneaking suspicion occurs to me, as it slowly dawns on me that there don't seem to be any other classes in session on this floor either, and come to think of it there aren't nearly as many people around as there ought to be. I find a computer, check the student calendar, and discover I hadn't read it closely enough two weeks ago. I had blithely stopped at the line that read

Semester begins: Aug 19

Now upon scrolling down, I discover that the line an inch below it reads

Instruction begins: Aug 25

I can just hear my first-grade teacher saying "Read every word." Except she never had to say that to me. Apparently I was smarter at the age of six than I am now.

Oh well. At least I get to sing "Ode to Joy" tonight. With a real chorus, I mean, not just sitting in my room jamming with the stereo like I usually do.

Yes, I exist. W00t.