Moving On

Nine

NINE
S a n d r a

"What are you doing here?" I ask him in an exasperated tone. He should be in bed, nursing his hangover. You're not going to make a lot of friend by puking all over people.

"Well, when I woke up, I couldn't find you anywhere. So I showered and started looking for you all over the campus. I heard everyone talking about how great coffee is here while I was wandering around so I thought I'd stop by for a while," he explains. "And here you are! I'm only lucky dude."

"Why were you looking for me?" I ask him.

I could hear Jessica chuckling lightly from across me. I sigh inwardly. I guess she's not going to let go of her theory that Austin and I have something for each other.

"I wanted to say thank you," he says a little too cheerfully. "You know, for taking care of me last night."

I grabbed my phone and my coffee. We shouldn't be talking about this in front of Jessica, much less in public. "Whatever," I dismiss him. I turn to face Jessica. "I need to go. I need to do some stuff."

"Okay," Jessica says with a smile. Clearly, she's still hanging on to her theory.

"Drop that smile, will ya?" I say in an annoyed tone, but it only made Jessica smirk more.

I exit from the campus café, not bothering to check if Austin followed me. But I didn't need to check. Austin was behind me.

I keep walking. "I thought you wanted coffee."

"Oh, that can wait," he says. "You didn't acknowledge my thank you, you know, it kind of hurts."

"Save it," I say a little too harsh. "I had no choice. I wasn't going to let my dorm room reek of vomit and my roommate reek of alcohol on its first night. I did what I had to do."

We've entered the campus offices now. I didn't lie to Jessica; I really needed to do some stuff. First on my agenda: I needed to reaffirm my schedule for the first term. When I first got it, they told me that it was sort of tentative because of conflict between the schedules of the professors, so the students had to go back to the registrar to have it checked again.

I handed my schedule and ID at the woman behind the glass panel.

"Frosh?" She asked in an absolutely bored tone, like the old grumpy monster from Monsters Inc.

I nodded. I didn't even know why she asked if I was a freshman, it shows on my ID, but whatever. I'm one to dwell on technicalities which is probably why everything's my problem.

She typed something on her computer and she entered my schedule, a piece of paper the size of a one fourth bond paper, into a machine that looks like a printer (it probably is, but whatever). After a few seconds, an electronic beep resounds and the paper silently enters the machine.

It comes out with a huge "disregarded" printed across it.

"Show this to a professor if they marked you absent on a class you shouldn't be in at a given time," she explains. "We still haven't fixed the database for schedules for the professors, so expect a lot of confusion this first term."

"How am I supposed to know if they marked me absent?" I ask.

"You'll need to check your profile on the school website to see if you got marked on any subject. If something's not right on your markings for the day, you just click the "incorrect" option below the subject and marking shown." She shows me a sample student profile on a kiosk in front of her panel.

"Now, for your new schedule," she continues.

She reloads the machine with a new piece of paper like the one my old schedule was printed on. She types something on her computer once again and the electronic beep surfaces once more. After a few seconds, she's handing me my new schedule.

It read:

MIAMI UNIVERSITY
501 East High Street, Oxford, OH 45056, USA

Student Schedule
Term 1, AY 2012-2013

Queenly, Sandra
Freshman
Bachelor of Arts in International Studies

MONDAY
• 10AM to 12PM
International System Relationships
Room 1105, Liberal Arts Bldg.
• 2PM to 4PM
Interaction bet. World Countries
Room 227, Liberal Arts Bldg.
• 4:30PM to 5:30PM
MINOR: Mathematics
Room 1212, Lecture Hall, Main Bldg.

TUESDAY
• 11:30PM to 12:30PM
MINOR: English
Room 120, Lecture Hall, Main Bldg.
• 1PM to 3PM
Foreign Societies, Cultures, & Government
Room 5, Liberal Arts Bldg.
• 4PM to 6PM
International Movements
Room 112, Liberal Arts Bldg.

WEDNESDAY
• 9AM to 11AM
International Organizations
Room 1114, Liberal Arts Bldg.
• 1:30PM to 2:30PM
MINOR: Science
Room 125, Lecture Hall, Main Bldg.
• 4PM to 6PM
World Economy
Room 129, Liberal Arts Bldg.

THURSDAY
• 8:30AM to 10:30AM
MINOR: Physical Education
Sports Bldg.
• 12PM to 2PM
Foreign Languages
Room 1225, Liberal Arts Bldg.
• 3PM to 5PM
World History
Room 124, Liberal Arts Bldg.

FRIDAY
• 7AM to 9AM
World Religion
Room 224, Liberal Arts Bldg.

Huh. So this is it. Seeing my new classes makes me feel fuzzy inside. I'm a college girl, I remind myself. I'm nearly an adult. Time hates me.

"Why did you have your schedule printed again?" Someone asks from beside me. Oh, yeah, I forgot. It's Austin. I completely forgot that he followed me all the way here.

"Didn't they tell you? The schedules they gave out yesterday were only temporary. Something about schedule conflict between the professors. You have to reaffirm them again today," I explain tiredly.

"Oh, yeah! I almost forgot." He reaches from his pocket and his schedule and ID materializes from it. "So I just give it to her?" He asks. I nod in reply, not bothering to waste my breath on him.

"Frosh?" Ms. Grumpy Face asks again.

"Yep," Austin replies, exaggerating the end "p" sound. Geez, what is he so happy about? I liked him better the first time I met him, even when he was flirting my Jessica and the others. It's unnerving to see him this cheerful. It's like he's onto something not good.

The woman looks distastefully at Austin's crumpled schedule paper, doing her best to soothe it out with her hands, and finally, places it on the loading stand on the printing machine. She repeats the process she did with my schedule, and after a few seconds, Austin's old schedule has a huge "disregarded" printed across it.

The woman explains to him what she explained to me just moments ago, and on and on it went, until finally, Austin has his new schedule.

I don't even know why I waited for him.

Realizing that I didn't have any reason to wait for him, I started walking away. I think I'll have a long rest before college life officially starts tomorrow. I know for a fact that my course will bring me shit tons of stress, and I'd like to get as much rest as I can before that happens.

But before I'm even one yard away from Austin, he starts running to catch up with me. "Hey, wait up!"

I keep walking.

"Can I see your schedule?" He asks. I hand him what he asked for, but I kept walking.

"Whoa, this is cool," he suddenly says.

"What's cool?" I ask harshly. I keep walking.

"We almost have the same schedule!"