Musings on my mornings

College affords its students the unparalleled opportunity to set your class schedule to fit around your drinking schedule. Each semester, it becomes easier and easier to get primo class times to ensure you don't have class before noon, which allows you to stay out till five the night before. As your credits increase, your registration time comes sooner, and you get a wider selection of classes to select from.

This being my last semester, one would use their deductive reasoning skills to assume I have class once a week for one hour beginning at 2 p.m. However, you would be wrong. I do only have class twice a week, but that is so I can work the other three days. And, my class schedule sucks. For the first time in eight semesters, I have an 8 a.m. class. Not even freshman year was I burdened with studies at such an early hour.

But, despite my horrid schedule, I am undettered. In semesters passed, I have passed on a night on the town because of an early wake-up call, but sleep be damned, I plan on getting my fill this semester. The economy sucks, I can't find work and the newspaper is more and more depressing each day, so I pledge to live up my last few months soaking it in with my friends, and I hope you do too.

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I have complained in the past in this space about journalism students, but I actually heard a pretty good story from one during class the other day. In my feature writing class, our professor asked us to interview people until we heard an "amazing story." One girl told a story about herself, which didn't exactly follow the assignment (a rare occurrence in the j-school) but it was a good story nonetheless.

Sarah, the narrator, received a call from her friend, Beth, one night. Beth asked if she could spend the night at Sarah's, because she had been having trouble sleeping at her apartment, where she lived alone. Sarah said sure, and Beth came over. When she got there, she admitted to being in terrible pain, the source of which were horrible cramps in her abdomen. Sarah had been suspicious that Beth was pregnant for some time, and the cramps she described sounded similar to labor pains. However, Beth had no idea she was, because she had begun a new birth control (it is apparently injected, I was not familiar with it) that had similar side effects to pregnancy, and had not gained much weight, so it never occurred to her that she was with child. But when it became obvious she was in labor, Sarah called for an ambulance, which did not arrive before Beth's baby did. Instead, while Beth struggled in the bathroom, Sarah knelt before her friend and told her to push.

"What? Why the hell do you want me to push?" Beth asked.

"Because you are having a baby, and I can see its head. You should probably try and sit down," she said.

Beth was in too much pain to lift or bend her legs, so she delivered her baby standing up into Sarah's arms. The paramedics arrived, took the baby and mother to the hospital, and Sarah warned her father not to go down into the basement bathroom to avoid the horrid sight of the aftermath.

Beth delivered a health baby who is doing well from what Sarah told our class, despite Beth celebrating a 21st birthday, continuing her cigarette habit and never going to the doctor once during her entire pregnancy. Maybe delivering babies will help Sarah land a job in our rapidly dying field.

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Not sure how I would have graduated with a degree in journalism without the Fraternity. A group of 70 guys is not merely good fodder for a blog, but also as sources for stories for class. I would say I have used Fraternity members in more than half of the stories I have done for class, including the one I am working on for Tuesday. It has proven to be more than just a drinking society, although it has filled that niche nicely.