I am trying to ensure I create space in my day to write about this experience for a number of reasons. One, because I will eventually forget them. Someday, I’ll read these posts and likely not remember writing them or even living the memories I’m recording here. This is just how it’s been to read all of my old journals. There are entire relationships that lasted months that I don’t remember. It makes me incredibly sad when I go through those pages and it feels like someone else posessed me, had these experiences, wrote about them, and then departed leaving me without even a wisp of recollection.
The second reason I’m writing this (publicly), is because I hope that someday someone will come across this blog and realize that they, too, can do something as wild as go to Yale College for their undergrad at almost 45 years old.
And finally, this is for family, friends, enemies, and acquaintances who want to see what day to day life is like or live vicariously through me and understand this experience on the periphery. Of course, I won’t be able to do the experience justice, but let’s be real. No one really reads blogs anymore. They certainly aren’t going to read through my long, rambling, and disjointed posts.
There will likely be no theme. I have always blogged in a stream-of-consciousness style. I will keep to the same guidelines I had when I wrote Army Girl ages ago when milblogging was a thing. These days, it’s all about the miltwitter. I’m safe. Mostly. The dates of events may not be accurate. I’ll be able to track them, but readers won’t. I’ll likely not mention names unless I know someone is okay with it. I will probably actually change names…
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Today was the first day of classes at Yale. Though Yale did accept enough of my transfer credits for me to start as a sophomore, I’m electing to start as a freshman. #ClassOf2026
I’m taking another college writing course. I’ve taken at LEAST four already but one can never be too good of a writer. I’m certainly not. I am also taking beginner Korean, and a class on Buddhist Thought. I’m “shopping” a few other classes as well. Yale has a shopping period for the first couple of weeks of school. During this time, students sign up for classes they are interested in, go to all of them, then decide if they want to stay or drop the course. I have five, total. Unfortunately, of the three classes I took today, Korean, Buddhist Thought, and my writing course on the topic of awe, I want to keep all three of them! I was going to only take three classes this semester, but I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps I’ll get bored easily and wish I had taken four. The plan now is to enroll for four and drop one if it gets to be too much in a few weeks.
I won’t lie and say that today was easy, though in hindsight, it doesn’t seem as bad as it felt as I was living it. In the moment, it was a struggle. I’m in a new place and I don’t know the buildings or where classes are. I’ve had a few campus tours and with the memory issues and the nervousness, it isjust hard to remember where things are. I spent too much time socializing yesterday (there was a birthday), and not preparing for today. I’m not really prepared for tomorrow, either. I shall do that in the morning.
By the time I made it to lunch, I was so anxious I couldn’t eat. It didn’t help that the dining hall was so incredibly crowded and loud. I dislike both crowds and loud places. I’m going to find a place to hang and do homework where it’s quiet or I’ll come back to the apartment and take naps with the pups.
The best part of the day was sitting at cross campus in the sun after classes. The Yale bells were ringing, the breeze was cool, the sun warm, and the company was aight. ; ) I don’t know what it is about hanging with other vets. We just get each other.
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