Just had my first class: Chemistry. Well it is more like four classes, really. There's a main lecture, a lab lecture, a recitation section, and a lab. Four exams, starting at 7:30 AM no less. Final is Dec. 22. You know, I think I would not have been able to deal with this kind of schedule for even one class when I was going here as an undergrad, just due to sheer impatience. I remember when sitting still for 50 mins. straight was torture. Now it's nothing; I can sit still for hours on end.

All around me child-like-faced people twitched and whispered in this large auditorium while I sat and stared quietly at the screen the professor used. Just when, by the way, did 12-year-olds start attending college?? I caught some of them from time to time, particularly the girls, looking at me nervously. One young fellow I stood next to in line to buy lab supplies after class even had trouble walking in front of me through the line, hesitating for a second and glancing tenuously my way with a hurried "Umm, excuse me..."

I have reached the point in life where I make teen-agers/college students nervous just by my very presence. My God, that is depressing.

To make matters worse, the prof announced at the start of class that he had all the e-mail addresses for all the students except one. He said he needed "Mr. Campbell's email address". He said this without the usual note of bemusement that enters into the voice of an elder who refers to a younger person by a more formal title, and this man is gray-haired (Thank God. I am not sure I could have stood it if he had been some 20-something Ph.D like my microeconomics prof. of 1988 was).

At some point I became "Mr. Campbell". Just how the Hell did this happen?