I’d be lying if I said that all the book covers that my mystery roommate had on her walls didn’t intimidate me, but it’s true, they did. As much as I love writing for other people to read, I personally, don’t take very much pleasure in reading for fun. I think I did so much reading in my childhood that I burnt myself out, kind of like the Jonas Brothers did with their career. However, no matter if she judged me for keeping up with the Kardashian’s instead of classic literature, I’d still find away to become her friend.

I was in the city to take classes at NYU, so that I did. NYU isn’t an easy school to be accepted into and I had heard that the professors ran a pretty tight ship. When I found out that I had gotten accepted, I so desperately wanted to rub it into the face of the high school staff who had lost all faith in my post high school academic endeavors and everyone else for that matter who didn’t believe that a girl like me could do it. I may not have graduated high school with honors, but I graduated high school with bright eyes and optimum optimism (and obviously a knack for alliteration). The truth is, NYU had been my dream school like Princeton was Hillary Duff’s in A Cinderella Story. I didn’t apply  during my senior year of high school because I didn’t want to disappoint myself with a letter of rejection. But now, I had made it. I was the new girl on campus and I just wanted to be apart of something that had been so cool to me for a long time, and it was finally happening.

I was taking two classes, one on the art of criticism in journalism and one on style journalism. The one on criticism made me nervous because I had heard that, although the professor was very good and highly respected, she expected a lot. I just wanted to get through my classes and enjoy my time in the city. I arrived to class about an hour early so I waited in the 6th floor lobby. I am directionally challenged so I had to leave plenty of time in my schedule to get wildly lost on my 20 minute walk to class. I learned that I should give myself more credit, because I arrived just fine. When the clock approached the 15 minute mark before class, I decided to go find the room which was very close to the lobby. No one was in there shockingly. I chose a seat not too close to where the professor would sit but also not too far away. A boy walked in shortly after me and chose the seat beside me. It was now Tuesday and I hadn’t had very much human interaction since I had arrived on Saturday so I was desperate to make new friends. I quickly introduced myself and began to ask him some questions. It turned out that he was about to be a senior at NYU and was studying music engineering (I think). Finally, the rest of the class started to arrive and our conversation was cut short.

Our professor was very intimidating. She made it clear that she did expect a lot. We began to discuss some topics and I was immediately silenced by the amount of intellectual conversation going on. I know in this post I keep saying that I felt intimidated but it’s because I did. I was new at new York University, and these students knew a lot about a lot of things. I took a deep breath and remembered that I, too, was smart and had gotten into NYU just as they did. I didn’t speak very much during the first class which probably hurt my participation points, but I was too busy absorbing all of the new information around me to function like a proper student.

When I arrived back to the dorm, I had a tough time unlocking the front door. It was a pleasant surprise to feel that a hand was meeting the doorknob on the other side as the knob twisted and turned and let me in. “You must be Emily,” said a girl just an inch shorter than me with curly brown hair. “Yes, yes I am – Natalie right?” I asked. “Yeah! So where did you just come from?” She asked as she sat down in her desk chair in our room. I then proceeded to tell her all about my class. Class had been so crazy that I was still anxious about the whole ordeal and I was still trying to register in my mind that I was going to have to step up my conversation in class. Her first impression of me was probably that I was crazy, as I babbled on like an idiot. I was still out of breath from the hot 30 minute walk home so my entire story came out like I was having a panic attack. It turned out she was really nice. She told me she understood and told me I would for sure do better on Thursday. She reassured me that first days at new schools are always tricky. I was thankful for her. I also took the time to apologize for moving her stuff around the room, which she met my apology with more reassurance that it was totally fine and that she was the sorry one for leaving the room a complete disaster when she went out of town for the holiday weekend. It was my turn to reassure her that it was totally okay, and I, too, understood the situation.

I will be releasing the next chapter next week! Stay tuned for more on my NYC  summer adventure! If you want to be featured on this blog please pitch story ideas to thefangirlemail@gmail.com

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Emily