Really, I'm only mildly panicked.

(So much so that I just published this post without actually typing anything in the body. Clearly, I'm on my A game today.)

Today would normally be a relaxing day here in the office. For starters, it is the first day of my school-term hours, 10am-4pm, which I can already tell I'm gonna love. Second, nobody else in the executive corner of the office is in today. There are: 2 vacations, 1 business trip, and 1 personal day, leaving Froggy here all by her lonesome, and finished with the one menial and laborious task she had to complete. Ahhhh, nothing to do but surf the internet and watch the last 25 minutes of the day tick quietly by.

So what, you may ask, is the problem?

The problem is that tonight is my first class as a grad student and I am bugging the hell out.

I shouldn't be, I know this. I'm a good student. Always have been. Hell, I only applied to ONE graduate school--one of 2 in the country that offer my specific program--and I got in! That has to count for something, right?

But that doesn't stop the nagging little voice at the back of my head that looks at my 18 page syllabus and wonders "oh dear lord, what the hell have I gotten myself into?!??"

Also there is the fact that, when it comes to certain things--like my education--I can be a bit, oh, let's say anal. At the beginning of my undergrad I sat down with the coursebook and more or less plotted out the next 4 years of my academic life. Not down to the minute or anything, but I knew which classes I was going to take in what year, and how hard I'd have to work to make up for the smaller number of credits I'd earn on my year abroad. I walked into my first advising appointment with everything figured out, much to the surprise--and apparent relief--of my advisor, who had clearly been dealing with panicked freshman all day.

And that felt good.

Now here I am at a large university--instead of the cozy, tiny-liberal-arts-school atmosphere I know and love--and they don't tell us ANYTHING. I feel like that panicked freshman who doesn't know what to do, because the answers aren't even out there for me to find on my own! There aren't even course descriptions in my department! My classes were chosen based on the title and comments like "oh yeah, that's a good class" from my advisor. I asked about the requirements for my degree (ie- what classes do I need to take?) and her response was "oh don't worry, you're with me, it'll all work out."

While the above might be my philosophy to life in general, it most certainly is NOT my philosophy in terms of the $35k in student loans that I took out to finance this particular year of my life. I want ANSWERS people! I want definites!

I want to go home and take a nap.

Oh, but did I mention that my landlady called at approximately 8:30 this morning to let me know that the plumber was coming today to tear up the floors in my bathroom and get started on the 2-day ordeal that is fixing my crummy drain?

I just hope he remembers his promise to reconnect the toilet so that I don't come home from my first night of class to discover that I must pee in a jar.