I woke up this morning feeling like I did not want to be present. It was too early in the morning to function, and it was too early in the year to be starting school again.

I hauled myself into a presentable outfit (who am I kidding, it was just a sweatshirt and running shorts) and started brewing my daily school beverages: two travel mugs of tea, one of black coffee, and my 32oz water bottle. I take hydration very seriously.

As I carefully placed each mug in its cupholder, an aroma permeated my car. A combination of bitter coffee beans and fruity green teas reminded me of early mornings; the drive to school was redolent with memories of zero hour from last year.

And here I am now, driving to zero hour again.

The road was illuminated by only the moonlight. I knew this would be the "good morning" offered by my daily route -- at least, until Daylight Savings rolled around. I drove slower than usual due to the rain. It beat softly on my windows -- routine, steady.

A weird feeling rose in my stomach. Was I a senior? I mean, yes. But was I really a senior? I knew that the shock wouldn't hit me right away; I'm still waiting for it to sink in. I started to feel a trickle of excitement for the year to come, and I made it my goal to enjoy every last drop of what high school had to offer.

I faced each class with fresh eyes. When complaints started creeping in from the back of my mind, I adjusted my perspective. No, I did not want to be sitting in a quiet room at 6:40 in the morning, listening to my band director talk about her syllabus. No one really wanted to be there. I could have easily let my subconscious pick out at every little annoyance about her speech, but I didn't. I reminded myself what it felt like to talk in front of a crowd; I imagined myself in her shoes, giving her first syllabus speech on her first real school day at this school. My heart warmed. She was doing a great job of staying calm as 30 pairs of eyes rested on her. I knew she must have put a lot of thought into the presentation of her class structure; I could tell these guidelines -- and this band program -- meant a lot to her.

I left zero hour with newfound empathy.

Stepping into my first hour -- an English/journalism based independent study -- I let out a sigh of relief. Newly implemented school policies (that I had just heard in passing this morning) began to stress me out. Administration is cracking down on attendance, on tardiness, on cell phone use. To my delight, my first hour classroom had a coffee machine with a fresh brew ready to go. I poured myself a cup (because I toooootally need more hot drinks to prep me for the day, right?) and sat down on the carpet, placing my laptop on a short table. Time to write. I smiled and got right to it.

I left first hour with the kind of encouragement I needed for my last First Day.

To be honest, I had never really looked forward to learning physics. I thought I was bad at it -- I was actually scared to take it. However, one smile from my second hour physics teacher erased my fears; I was in good hands. I comfortably situated myself in a desk and chatted with friends I hadn't seen all summer. As soon as class began, though, my attention was directed at the physics syllabus. I found my teacher's genuine love for physics incredibly refreshing, and her passion rubbed off on me. When she dropped a sheet of paper, she let out a little "darn gravity!" in a way that I knew the words had come out of her mouth on instinct. She truly loves physics.

I left second hour with a hope that I will feel the same, too.

Third and fourth hour would constitute my two hour biology block. I learn best when the teacher shows passion for the subject, and I knew right away that my biology teacher devotes herself to her field. From the very first day, we got to do hands-on labs. We looked at daphnia under the microscope and discussed characteristics of life. I was fascinated by the crustaceans' clear shells. Through some probing, I let slip a question: Are there more species of plants or more species of animals on Earth?

I left this block with pure curiosity.

A return to my lovely corner of the online room would be my welcome to fifth hour. I was ecstatic to see my online teacher from last year; there are many stories about my summer that I had yet to tell her. I have never felt so serene in the online classroom as I did today, working out an AP Macro FRQ, scribbling purple ink in my notebook.

I left fifth hour with a sense of coming home.

I've always been bad with computers; I took a course one time on a language called C (some programming language? Maybe? I told you I was bad at this), and it went... Well, it went.

So, as I walked into a computer science class for sixth hour, I was a little uneasy. Most of the reason I took the course was the teacher -- I had heard wonderful things about this legendary math and computer science teacher. If I didn't learn anything about programming, at least I'd be able to enjoy the jokes my teacher would crack every day in class. Today, he taught us about binary numbers: 0 and 1. We learned how to count. We learned octal. We learned hexadecimal. For a little while, I was confused, but for the most part, I was fascinated. I imagined a world where only zeros and ones existed. We never would have known that we were missing out on 2 through 9! The binary system would be the way we naturally count. Isn't that crazy?! Or, take the octal system: we use numbers 0-7, but 8 and 9 don't exist. When you count to 7, the next number up is 10, and the "1" is in the "eight's place." It's a strange concept, and I thought of hypothetical worlds where we had even more numbers to work with than we know today. The way we learn to count -- as we know it -- is completely arbitrary. A seemingly random system of symbols constitutes everything we know, from money to age (they say "age is just a number," right?) to a measurement of how well we function in the education system.

Needless to say, I left sixth hour in awe.

I may have woken up this morning not expecting much, but my last First Day proved to be surprise after surprise. It's only the first day of my senior year, and I've already dove deeper into my brain than I could have ever thought. Imagine what this year has in store.