my horrible first day of college

today was the first day of class, and boy was today a slap in the face. i thought i was prepared for this whole college thing, not even close.

my schedule for the semester is as follows:
9-10:05- oral communications (this class is just for the first 7 weeks of the semester)
10:45-11:50- intro to women's studies
1:15-2:20- inquiry studies 101 (this class is required of all freshmen)
2:30-3:35- lit of the old and new testament

all of these classes are on monday, wednesday and friday. i have no tuesday/ thursday classes.

here's how my day went. i wanted to wake up at 7, but jacob started texting me a few minutes after 6, which was fine, i just layed in bed texting him for the next hour, no worries. i got up at 7 and did my usual shower routine, then i ate breakfast in my room, which consisted of a bagel and cream cheese and sunny d. i basically just chilled on the laptop, and at 8:50 i walked over to my first class.

ever since i heard months ago that we had to take oral communications, which is a public speaking class, i began dreading it. i HATE speaking in front of people. when im with friends i usually can just talk and talk, but if it's a formal thing like a group presentation, or worse, a speech, i get sick with nervousness.

if i have to do a speech or talk in front of a group of people that are all supposed to be listening to me, like when i had to read my testimony in front of church for baptism, i FREAK out. i shake, get really hot, i start to feel sick, i sort of hyperventilate and i nearly have a panic attack. even today in that class, we had to write on a notecard our name, major, hometown, class most excited about, class that you're dreading, an interesting fact about ourselves, and someone we think is a good public speaker. then we went around the room randomly and had to stand up and share that info with the class. it was basically whoever wanted to go went, but everyone had to. i was the last person to go, and while everyone was talking, i started freaking out even tho it wasnt even a big deal. when i went it was really obvious that i was nervous. i ended mine with "the class i am dreading the most is this class because i hate public speaking." and the professor said that they can always tell who hates public speaking because they always go last.

we got assignments in that class. we have to listen to an online lecture and take a short quiz on it after, which is also online. we also have to do 2 pages in our workbook.

then i had like a half hour break before my next class, so i went back to my room to grab a snack and lsiten to the online lecture, which was 15 mins long. i hope we werent supposed to take notes or remember a lot from it because i dont remember much of it at all. i then started looking for the quiz and couldnt find it, which raised my level of panic even more.

i walked to my next class, which was intro to women's studies. i wasnt sure what to expect in that class. first we did the usual introductions, then the professor went over the syllabus right away and then told us to get in groups of 5. of course i didnt have a group because it seemed as if i was the only one in there that didnt know anyone. a group let me in, and of course they all knew each other and i sat there not saying anything like an idiot. then the professor started explaining what we have to do for our first project, and then basically said get to work.

i had no idea what was going on and it seemed like everyone else understood, so i didnt want to ask questions. i wouldnt have even known what to ask. my group asked if we could go work somewhere else so we did. my group began talking about all of these ideas and thoughts for our project, and i'd explain on here what we have to do or what our project is, but i have no idea. i just sat there with a confused look on my face not saying anything. i have no idea what's going on. apparently we have to read pages 3-17 in our textbook for friday and then i guess we are gonna have a quiz but she said it'll be super easy.

after that was lunch, and like usual, i ate alone. which is embarassing. but whatever.

then i went back to my room because i had about an hour to kill. i worked on the 2 pages in my workbook for oral communications. well, i worked on them best as i could. almost half of the questions i didnt answer because i dont know how to. i gave up on that and i thought i should read the pages for my women's studies class. i started on that, and i could not focus at all. i had no idea what it was talking about and i tried and tried to focus and make sense of what it was saying, but i couldnt. i tried to keep reading, but i couldnt.

next was my inquiry studies class, which we actually met and had class 3 times in the past week as a part of orientation. today was just the first "official" day of class. we had some general discussion about the wartburg mission statement, which basically addresses 4 things: leadership, service, faith and learning. the wartburg mission statement is to help one achieve and better understand these things or something like that. we broke off into groups of 2 and did a short reading in our book, and then had to discuss it as a class. that went ok, but of course, i didnt understand what we read and everyone else was coming up with all of these smart and deep thoughts and ideas that i am too stupid to come up with.

at the end of class we had to do a freewrite, where we were timed for 5 minutes and had to write about something. it was related to the mission statement. i dont remember what the question was. she told it to us, then said "go." as soon as she said go, everyone else began writing nonstop for the next 5 minutes. i drew a blank. as soon as we were supposed to start, i completely forgot what we were supposed to write about and i switched yet again to panic mode. i had no idea what to write. i stared at my blank peice of paper panicking. i tried REALLY hard not to cry. i thought about writing on the paper about how i never do good in timed writings, and that's if i even write anything down at all.

back in 7th grade was the first time i didnt do anything for a timed writing. i turned in my paper blank. over the past 6 years, there may have been a couple timed writings i actually wrote something down for, but overall, they were blank. i have never been good at writing. that is a bad thing because apparently social work is a writing intensive major, and most of my classes are specified as writing intensive.

i ended up not turning anything in, because i saw no point in turning in a blank peice of paper. once we got dismissed, i nearly ran out of the room and into the bathroom where i had a panic attack. i couldnt breathe and i was shaking and pacing and crying. luckily no one came in the bathroom. i had to pull myself together quickly because my next class was in 10 minutes and i had to walk all the way across campus. i think we have homework in there, i'm honestly not sure. i think that im off to a pretty sucky start because my first grade is a zero. fantastic.

on the walk across campus it got a little weird. i was thinking about how my day basically sucked and i have myself convinced that i cant do this, this whole college thing. all of these thoughts were rushing around in my head. is the first day of class too soon to drop out? should i give it another chance? what would my parents think if they even knew i had these thoughts? is droppnig out worse than failing out? what happens with my loans if either happens? if i cant continue at college, what else can i do? would my parents disown me for being a dropout? i even had the thought of "since i obviously cant handle college, there is no hope for me. in today's world, you need a college education to get anywhere in life, and if i cant do that, then there is no point for me to be here. not just at this college, but in this world because then i would just be taking up space." thought after thought rushed around in my head, nearly making me sick. i felt sick with guilt for even thinking these things.

i got into my next class, and i honeslty have no idea what we did. i know we went over a syllabus and reviewed some stuff on what the class is going to be about, but that's all i remember. now, i was paying attention in all of my classes. i just cant follow. i dont know if we have homework or not. im pretty sure we do but i dont know what it is.

there is no way that i can do 4 more years of this, not to mention that i wanted to go for my master's too. i simply cant do it. i am basically throwing my life away right now. i didnt make any final decisions or anything but i never thought id have these thoughts. i cant handle all this. i simply cant.

the entire time ive been writing this blog entry, ive been sitting here alone in my room in tears. sometimes i just had to take a break from typing to just sob and sob. i dont know what to do. i have only experienced 1 day of college and im already having a breakdown.