I've been doing pretty well at avoiding knowing the date all summer. The month is a little tougher to master, especially when there are calendars to flip. Every September the anxiety held at bay during August gets released. It can be the daunting task of packing for college as a resident student that holds you hostage (a process which Megan guides us through in "The Eight Stages of Packing for College") or the knowledge that you've set yourself up for a heavy workload (as Tianna discusses in "Confessions of an Unintentional Workaholic"). Personally, here's what I know to expect this fall:

1. At some point during my commute to Arcadia I will find myself with ten minutes to get from the parking lot in "the pit" to my class in Murphy Hall. On the second floor. Hill followed by staircase. By the end of last spring I had managed to cultivate enough leg muscle to manage this feat without being entirely conscious of every step taken but, considering I have done zilch to maintain that ability this summer, it will be gone. Which means back to square one: walking through the burn. AKA hyperventilating.
2. The same night I need to write a five-page paper, course selection will be released for the spring and I will become obsessed with planning out my schedule. Come midnight I'll have gone through every course in every likely major of interest and have maybe a paragraph of my paper finished. But at least I'll have figured out what classes I'm going to register for.... approximately three months in advance.
3. One my classes will be canceled but I won't know about it. It will either be the only class I have that day or the first class of the day, meaning I could've slept in. After driving for an hour I will sit in an empty classroom and wonder why no one else is there yet. Usually one other person missed the e-mail, too, and will check their phone for messages. I'll then walk back to my car and rue what otherwise would have been a much appreciated chance at free time.

But I also know that these things will happen this semester, too:

1. I'll get a chance to read Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" in Modern American Lit. Plays are my favorite and this one, about the Salem Witch Trials, is one I've wanted to read for a while.
2. Rough draft of thesis: COMPLETED. It seems like a long way away now but this will happen.
3. "The Mindy Project" will return! After being canceled by FOX, Hulu has picked up the series for an unheard of (in 2015) 26 episode fourth season, starting on Sept. 15th. So while this means I need to start paying for a Hulu subscription it will be worth every penny for the laughs and comfort of Mindy Kaling's wonderful little comedy in the rough months ahead.

Plus whenever I have to climb the hill before Murphy I will keep things in perspective: at least it's not the Empire State Building. Yeah, Danny was waiting for Mindy at the top but it's the Empire State Building-- that's a tall staircase.