The honeymoon is over - time to get geared up for real work

Megan Schimpf Prescriptions

It felt like camp. All the leaves were green, the sun was shining, people were wearing sunglasses.

It was fun. There were people you hadn't seen in four months and new people who you'd like to see more. Walking through the Diag took hours because you stopped to talk to everyone. You had a life to set up. Your parents dropped you off to live with your friends.

The pages of notebooks stuck together at the spirals as you turned them. The spines of books cracked ever so slightly when you opened them and still had that lovely new-book smell. You had to take pens out of the wrapping at the beginning of each lecture.

And all you did in class was collect syllabuses and listen to interesting, yet inconsequential, things called "housekeeping."

Ah, but times, they are a-changin'. While all the leaves aren't brown yet, the sun isn't shining so much anymore and it's starting to be nice to stay in your warm bed in the chilly morning.

Besides, camp never lasted this long.

Since when did camp come with attendance policies and reading assignments? That paper or exam that looked like it was weeks away when you clicked the syllabus into the binder is suddenly due tomorrow. All those new pens are now missing.

This doesn't seem fun anymore. The bloom is off the rose, the novelty is gone. Welcome to the end of September, not the beginning.

Coincidentally, this is when tuition bills arrive.

All those lecture notes in that getting-ragged notebook are more than just something to take in and out of a backpack. That cursory reading on nights before you go out isn't going to cut it anymore. Open the books, even though they don't crackle anymore. Discover the inside of that building with all the books in it, instead of walking by on the way to somewhere else. Use a computer in Angell Hall for more than e-mail.

While the first few weeks of school are filled with the excitement and craziness of moving back in, going to first-of-the-year parties, trying to remember everyone's name and wondering where to be when, the following week is filled with letdown.

After the chaotic commotion comes the commonalities.

In the beginning, we wish for a routine - something to rely on, something that is planned instead of last minute, something that will be the same next week. Then, sometimes you really can get what you want - and discover you miss what you had. After a week or so of having a set routine, it grows irritating and tedious in its reliability.

It's not easy to get back into it. The best-laid plans of spring's CRISP are right there, ready to pale in the face of reality. Suddenly classes aren't just neat-sounding descriptions in a course catalog and there's actual work to be done. Soon.

What was once academically fascinating and intriguing is now just work to get through. Any initial momentum sputters. Just listening and taking notes in class isn't enough. Casual reading won't cut it.

But only because it's not new anymore.

It is time to take a deep breath, get the ol' brain cells firing again after four months and dust off that resolve and dedication. With phone, cable and heat hooked up, posters on the walls, books mostly bought, and planner filled with due dates, there's nothing left to prepare.

Time to really start school. And it's a painful transition.

September is a marvelous time to reminisce about April, remembering just how many pages were printed, exams were bubbled in and presentations were made. We were on a roll -routine in hand, anything was possible.

Now though, it takes immeasurable dedication to focus on a page and highlight only the really important things. It takes skill to memorize, even with neat mnemonics.

Even the knowledge that things will get easier with time - teachers become familiar and the first exam passes by - doesn't help during the next week or so. But look at April again - this blah attitude is temporary. Imagine how many good things await on the other side of the hump. Questions, discoveries, solutions.

All it takes is a deep breath.

The tough get going. The going gets easier. The panic subsides after the first crisis, leaving time in the routine for fun, momentum and intrigue. Time for deeper exploration. Time for more newness.

Camp was never like this. Camp was never this good.

- Megan Schimpf can be reached over e-mail at mschimpf@umich.edu

09-25-97