Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Until further notice, I don’t have 8am classes on any days except Wednesdays, which is 3-hour lab day for me. At least once though I will be going to school early with my cousin, when he has the biology and chemistry lab scheduled.

There are two concerns that are apparent after only two and a half days of classes. First is that the freshmen, for lack of places where they can hang out and congregate during their vacant periods, stand around in the hallways or sit on the stairs. There were suggestions of putting benches around the upper central lobby, which hasn’t materialized. The second I’ll go into some other time.

Going back to last Wednesday: The most disorganized part of the freshman orientation morning session though was when the Student Council and the representatives of the Recognized Student Organizations took the stage, something that wasn’t practiced or speech-prepared. There were people who took the microphone and, thinking they were doing a service warning the freshmen, just badmouthed certain teachers, the subjects they taught and specific school facilities.

In the meantime, I was at the back preparing the Student Handbook CD with the inserts of the Freshman Passport and the various coupons from the sponsors and a flyer from the resident Music School, to be distributed before the new enrollees exited for lunch. I wonder if those on stage knew I was there with Director for Student Activities Ronnie, if they thought of or cared about the consequences of their actions.

In the afternoon session, the speaker advised the students on the transitions from high school to college, and gave suggestions to the yearly phenomenon of “herds” of slow-moving freshmen blocking the hallways, stairs and corridors between classes: Always Keep Right.

Then Sir Joel got to try out his “getting to know you” game where students stood in a circle and passed around a ball while calling each other by their name with an alliterative adjective, like “Rambling Writer-Veggie”. The person passed to also had to thank the thrower by name. After several rounds, they had up to four ping-pong balls flying across the circle.

Leaving for the campus tour afterwards, I also had to prepare the student newsletter that had to be given out, as well as the letter telling them about the diagnostic exam for English 1 and Math 1 on the first day of class.

At the upper central lobby they were also told about the sample exam that they could photocopy. First time I’ve seen students photocopying something even BEFORE classes began.

We ended at the lower central lobby where they saw the architect’s model of the campus and the development plan for the new buildings.

The tree planting was postponed for another time because of the recent rains, which made the dug up area muddier than usual. In the future the students will just be warned to have extra footwear along for that activity. Somewhat related, it also turned out that the Entrepreneur’s Guild did not sell their sun visors and mugs. Maybe they’ll have a booth when the next activity out in the sun is scheduled.

And I’m finally done with Wednesday last week.