The K is for Kwantlen, of course. I start classes one week from today.

I must admit, I am nervous. Not about the classes, of course. Those aren’t going to be a problem. It’s more like I am nervous about the newness of it all and worried that all that stimulation will give me a panic attack.

So in a sense, I am nervous about being nervous and anxious about being anxious. Neuroses are so meta.

That’s why I am glad (and nervous) about orientation tomorrow. Granted, it will be more socially stimulating than just showing up for classes next Tuesday, but I think not knowing my way around will be easier around a bunch of others in a similar state.

Besides, part of my plan for going back to school was to give myself more social exposure so I can further my recovery from depression, social anxiety, and whatnot.

So despite a potential social anxiety meltdown, I am going to go to the damned thing. I think I will take an extra Paxil that day, however. My therapist says that is totally fine by him. Nothing wrong with a little extra chemical sangfroid when I am entering a potentially triggering situation.

What I can’t figure out is whether it is truly an all day event, from 9 am to 3:30 pm, or whether those are just the hours it will be going and I am free to drop in and do whatever I need to do while I am there.

Obviously, I would prefer the latter. I wouldn’t have to be there at 9 am and I would have the comfort of autonomy and crowds instead of feeling like an animal being herded.

And it seems unlikely that they want me there all day. Surely a campus orientation can’t last all THAT long. Those hours seem a lot more like an elementary school day than a college event.

And I am fairly sure the entire thing is option, so there’s that.

But part of me is very nervous and hence wants to do everything “right”. I am trying to calm that part of me the fuck down, but it would be a lot easier if I had some solid info to go on. And yet, there is no contact info on the thing I got in the mail, so I don’t know who I can ask about it.

I may have to just call the university and wing it, and that would be very difficult for me.

God, mental illness sucks.

But whatever. It says on the webpage for orientation that my attendance is “expected”, which is less than “mandatory” but more than “optional”. So I will be there.

I just don’t want to be there all day. That sounds tiring and dull.

Overall, of course, I am looking forward to being back in school. I have total confidence in my abilities to do well in the classes I am taking. It’s just this little orientation speedbump that I have to get over first.

Part of me really wishes I could just show up for classes a week for today without any other bullshit.

I need solid intel, dammit.

Oh, one small bit of bad news : I do not have Mondays off, like I thought before. I have next Monday off, but that’s it. After that, I have one-half of my Ideology and Politics class on Mondays and the other half on Wednesdays.

Dang it. Oh well, welcome to the five days a week world, I guess.

Still, that’s a course I am looking forward to. Seems right up my alley. Like I said before, those are two of my favorite things. In fact, I think my love of politics is driven by my love of ideology, because politics is ideology writ large. It’s the arena in which a nation figures out what it really believes. How can I not love that?

So that’s Mondays (and Wednesdays). Tuesdays will be the big day because I will have six straight hours of education. From 1 to 2:50 pm, I will be in Intro to Journalism. Then I have ten minutes to get to Intro to Psychology : Areas and Applications. That’s it, ten minutes between three hour courses.

Should be fun! Crazy fun, the kind of fun that really requires you to stretch yourself, but still. Fun!

I am curious about what they teach in Intro to Journalism. I find it hard to imagine. I hope it’s essentially a boot camp for learning how to write like a journalist. That would suit me just fine. I would love to learn enough to try to make a go at a soft journalism job like columnist or reviewer. Or at least be able to freelance that kind of thing.

Wednesdays, I just have that other half of the Ideology and Politics class between 2:30 and 4.

Thursdays, I have Intro to Creative Writing at (bizarrely) 6pm. Not sure what goes on there, either, but at least it’s directly on target for my degree. My instinct is to be all cocky and say “What do they have to teach me? I’ve written four books and a metric whack of short stories!”

But that only shows that I have done it, not that I know what I am doing. And I haven’t submitted anything for publication, so as far as I know, I might be doing it all wrong.

Then on Fridays, at 1 pm, I have Intro to Psychology : Basic Processes. I am glad that I can take both Intro to Psych classes in the same semester. It means I get double the dose of one of my favorite subjects in the whole world. And it also means that I can sign up for more interesting stuff in the second semester.

That should take the sting out of the fact that I am going to be taking my one mandatory brutal math course. I don’t know what to think about that. I am quite good with numbers at a sub-calculus level.

So hopefully, I can learn calculus now.

I know at least one reader of this blog who could tutor me. You know who you are.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow, and give you all the gory details.