Through the wind blown trees, down the cement path, through the stone doorways of Williams Hall, I stumbled upon a room full of students assigned to English 100. I saw the nervous looks on their faces the first day of class. I saw the dumbfounded looks upon everyone’s faces after completing the first reading assignment in Falling Into Theory, a compilation of essays on the theory of language, literature, and the act of reading itself. I saw the confused, but amused expressions as the professor sitting before them spoke about eastern red cedars and rocket launchers and the origin of the word motherfucker, which happens to date back to many moons ago, you know. I saw the kid who always forgets his book and the kid who comes in late. I saw the Kristens, sitting kittycorner from me across the room. I saw Shannon and Sarah, who happen to be two different people, but somehow always seem to get confused. I saw the angst of the students as they got back their first paper assignments and the intense arguments that arose. I saw book after book be completed, hundreds of sheets of notes being passed back; I can only imagine the amount of trees these students have killed! I saw the treacherous heater sitting across the room from me, banging and clanging away every minute of the day, a piece of metal that seemed only to annoy everyone in the room. I saw the sliding blackboards covered in math problems, ironic because the class was an English class which is the opposite of a Math class and most English majors happen to dislike Math which is what happened to be up on the board. I saw a roomful of hopeful English majors, finally figuring out just what they had gotten themselves into…
-mollysheehan
