First Day

Today was my first day of class and it felt like grade school again. I packed my backpack, picked my outfit and went to bed early the night before. Entering the big auditorium I sat by myself. A bulky guy with a couple of gray hairs walked down my row of seats; he was nervous too. Initially, he wanted to sit one seat away but that seat was numbered “13.” Looking around nervously he said, “I can’t sit there.” “You can sit next to me if you want,” I said. I indicated and he sat in seat number 14. A grey bearded man with circle glasses walked to the front and asked us all to move up to the front. We were in one of the selected rows, but my row-mate wanted to move to the first row. “Are you gonna come?” I wasn’t in a position to say no. I move to the front row, center.

The teacher asked me to go first in the introductions because of where I was sitting. In front of the class, I had to say my name, where I was from and talk about my journey to an MFA in film. I got nervous and made jokes and gestured wildly; the class chuckled. I felt more at ease.
After me, a Brazilian girl with blue hair, a Chinese kid who joked about how he looked 13 years old (he did), a man who had to be in his late 40s, at the youngest, who lived in Asia for years and married and aboriginal (northern Chinese) woman, an African American concert harpist from Detroit and a Ghanan football player who worked for Proctor and Gamble designing feminine hygiene products all got up and talked about themselves for a full minute.

We are all so different, but we were hand picked and brought together to tell our stories… weird as they may be. It is all rather daunting but I am excited, this is going to be great.