I got my first D on my first report card when I was six. It was at the end of the column of A’s. I did not know what Phys. Ed. was but I did know that D made my stomach feel weird. Now, fifty years later, as I squinted through the magnifying glass at the C on one of my first college tests, my stomach felt equally weird.  [pullquote]Maybe this Amish grandma would not survive college after all.[/pullquote]  Continue reading More Pathetic →

“Well, if you’re the King of the Castle when it comes to blogs, I’m not even in the castle,” I said emphatically. “In fact, I don’t know where the castle is because I don’t know what a blog is.”

We, the twenty-plus students of English 015, were crowded into a computer lab instead of our usual spacious classroom because we were going to learn how to set up our own blogs. Michelle had just asked how many of us had ever done a blog before Continue reading Crossing the Moat →

I thought I had grown up arguing but a college textbook told me otherwise. What I had experienced was merely yelling, bickering, and fighting. Pathetic arguing is very different, at least according to the textbook for English 015 Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs.

Fortunately, Heinrichs did not write a traditional, bore-students-outta-their-skulls textbook so I was not the only one who actually learned something in that class. Continue reading Not Pathetic Enough →

“Okay, I think I got what I need to get to my email account, but I don’t know about that other thing,” I said to Don, the person assigned to set me up with the technology I was told I needed for college.

“What other thing?” Don asked. “Oh, you mean Angel.”

Did you say angel? What in the world do angels have to do with Penn State?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah, it is kind of a funny name, isn’t it?” he chuckled. “But you’re going to need to learn how to use it regardless of what it’s called.”

“Okay, but give me a minute to get past the questions. Why is it called Angel? What does Angel stand for? And is this angel sent from God or the devil?” Continue reading Good or Bad Angel →

The first time I went to school, I learned that I loved letters and hated numbers. Numbers were (still are) confusing, frustrating, and downright exasperating. Letters, on the other hand, became words and they clicked, fascinated, and stockpiled in my brain automatically. Vocabulary lists were my favorite thing. After I learned to read, I never stopped. I never stopped making vocabulary lists either.

But, during the first month as a college student, I learned that neither those early vocabulary lists nor the lists stockpiled throughout the previous forty years were going to cut it in a university classroom.

The day I discovered this, Continue reading Numbers & Letters →

As Michelle’s cheery greeting echoed around the room that first morning, there was a chorus of mumbling. Everyone else must share my I-don’t-do-mornings tendency, I thought, while Michelle seems to relish mornings.

In an equally cheery tone, she continued, “I’m expecting you to call me Michelle. Yeah, I do have a newly acquired PhD but we’ll let the Dr-title for those with more experience. Plus it makes me feel old and stodgy.”

I was impressed.

Amish people do not bother with surnames or titles; Continue reading My Second First Day of School Ends →

After falling off the edge of the metaphorical cliff, I landed outside Room 320 of the Willard Building that first morning. As I pulled open the door I muttered to myself, “Ach yuck, one thing is for sure, no Amish girls cleaned this place any time recently.” At least these surfaces weren’t quite as skuzzy as the restrooms surfaces, it was there that I made the first mental note to “Buy sanitary wipes ASAP!!” Continue reading My Second First Day of School: Part II →

As the white minivan jerked to a stop, my daughter mumbled, “Sorry, Mom, I can’t seem to remember that this brake pedal is super-sensitive. I think we’re at the corner where you want to be, right?”

“If we’re at the corner of Pollock and Burrows Roads, then yes,” I croaked through the sawdust and butterflies in my throat. I got out of the minivan pointing my long white ‘finger’ at the hot sidewalk. Taking a deep breath, I propped my white walking cane between my legs, hoisted the heavy backpack onto my back, adjusted the straps, tugged my top back down to my jeans, transferred the cane back to my right hand, and sucking my lungs full of air again, stepped off the edge of a cliff . . . Continue reading My Second First Day of School: Part I →