Even the best student invents new forms of logic when waking up for class in that limbo zone; not as early as you’d planned, but still enough time to throw on a sweatshirt and run to the shuttle.
At first, it’s a sneaky thought that creeps into your mind when you wake up and realize what time it is.
‘Could I really do it? All we were really supposed to do was review anyway”. Then you start to work it out in your mind, thinking it would be nice to enjoy a big breakfast this morning, maybe catch a few morning talk shows you haven’t seen in a while.
Suddenly guilt jogs in and slaps your carefree, sneaky thoughts aside.
Guilt reminds you that it’s expensive to skip class, in theory, because tuition is high and time is money. If you pay for a class that you do not attend, that is big money being wasted.
At the same time, has anyone really sat down and thought about how much they would pay to go back to sleep in the morning? Even an extra hour is well worth it after a late night.
Thinking quickly, you could always get notes from that girl who sits across from you in class, the one in the pigtail braids. Then again, maybe she and her boyfriend are celebrating their 11-month anniversary today and she took the day off. Doubtful, but possible.
Later on while still lying awake in bed, you start to anticipate the guilt that will follow you all day like a bad dream.
Paranoia soon sets in. When you go to the next class after you’ve skipped, will the other people know? They stare at you from behind their stack of notes from the last class, knowing that you will not be prepared for the exam.
Or will you turn into one of those ‘chronic skippers’ who misses weeks of class and doesn’t even think twice about it?
They casually float around the dorm, and in a few weeks, they’ve dropped from your radar.
This could be the tip of the iceberg and the start of a slippery slope.
But this morning is different. It’s not the end of the world. Even if you miss this one class, things will probably be okay.
The tie breaker usually comes in when you start to factor in what the professor has said about attendance during the semester.
If it’s not required, it might as well be an open invitation to skip class at least once a month, for mental health days alone.
You think about your friends. They skip class when the weather’s bad.
Their logic? If it’s too hot, their shorts will stick to their chairs.
If it’s raining, their pants get wet and never dry. If it’s snowing, you might as well forget it, they’ll probably slip and fall.
Walking to and from class on these days sucks, especially if you live in the campus ‘burbs (Harshman and Kreischer).
It’s a 10 or 15 minute walk to everything.
But during the middle of last semester, the walk was the least of my problems.
My roommate was always the one who convinced me to go to class. Not with anything she said, but the things that she did in the morning.
In the beginning of the semester I realized that she had an 8:30 class and I had a 9:30.
Perfect. This would give me one scheduled hour to do whatever I wanted. A little web surfing, maybe some music, followed by a sunny stroll on down to East Hall.
By the middle of the semester, I couldn’t wait for class to come just so that I could get away.
I started leaving for classes 45 minutes early.
When I woke up, she woke up, she got out some hard candy and started crunching so loud that some mornings it would wake me up. Then she started skipping the 8:30 class and sitting around slurping teas for an hour.
It was payback time. I started setting my alarm two hours early and hitting the snooze every nine minutes until I actually had to wake up. I’m pretty sure that it gave her a taste of her own evil medicine, but it didn’t make her go to class any more often.
So in the end, I usually go to class.
Because as tempting as it is to skip, there are always consequences.
Also, it’s not bad to leave your dorm for two or three hours a day.
The place needs to air out sometimes, trust me.
