Ah, freshmen.

It's the day after the day after Labor Day. For many colleges and universities around this fine nation, it means that school's now in session (if it already wasn't). That is actually one of the reasons I flew back to the East coast so early - like the moron I am, I just assumed that my new school started the same day my old school started - which would have been yesterday. It just made sense to me. Imagine my surprise when I realised - after buying my plane tickets, natch, that orientation isn't until the 13th and classes aren't until the 20th. Hence the massive amounts of travelling up and down the Eastern seaboard. It's been good, having all this extra time. I am currently a waste of oxygen (although when am I not?). Not that I won't not have tons of free time once classes really start - a full load of classes, and I only have one afternoon class, and nothing on Fridays. Too much idle time means bad things for my bank account.

But anyhow. I was down in Providence meeting a friend for dinner last Thursday. This is about the same time that all the cute little clueless freshmen start moving in. Freshmen are so clueless. It is quite amusing. They travel in herds. Yes, we all were freshmen once. I was too. I, however, skipped all of orientation after the first day and spent my time in Boston until classes started. So I actually never travelled in the herd, I was off being a bad freshman and not going to all those boring orientation events. (Seriously, I wonder how I make friends sometimes.)

So we were walking to our restaurant, making fun of the freshmen herds, and is my wont I randomly stopped to look at a window display. This habit of mine is disconcerting to people who don't know me, because it seems like suddenly I've disappeared as I don't give notice that I've stopped.

Ah, but my poor friend. In addition to "losing" me, she had this unfortunate encounter:

Freshman: Hey, do you know where [whatever orientation event was happening] is going on?
My poor friend: Um, no. Follow the herds of freshmen?
Freshman: Okay, thanks. [pause] Hey, maybe we'll be living in the same dorm...
My poor friend: [No words come out of her mouth, she's just too confused at this point.]
Freshman: [blithely continuing] Are there any good restaurants around here? Do you want to grab a bite to eat sometime?
My poor friend: Uh.. maybe some other time.

Seeing that she's a 3rd year medical student, she found this exchange particularly galling. "Do I LOOK that young?" she complained after I finally caught up to her and she shared that little exchange. Apparently, his father was standing right there too. Ew, don't pick up girls in front of your father. Ew, use a better pickup line than, "Maybe we'll be living in the same dorm."

My reaction? "Maybe you'll run into him when he's brought into the ER to get his stomach pumped for the first time."