Ryan Standish looked around the University classroom. It was his first day of college, it didn’t seem that different than high school: young people his age filled the desks, a middle aged guy was writing on the white board - he had to be the professor. Ryan felt very self-conscious. His hands seemed to grope his neck and face and arms. His skin felt so exposed, so naked. His skin itched all over. He licked his dry mouth it tasted of cotton.
“Good morning, Freshmen,” the professor began, “This is Creative Writing 101 for Freshmen, so if you’re supposed to be in a different class, you better get going. If you aren’t yet registered for this class, but wish to petition to enroll, see me after class. Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, you are probably all at slightly different levels of English writing capabilities. So as an exercise to help gauge your strengths and weaknesses, you’re going to spend this hour writing a short essay. The topic of the essay should be familiar to all of you. Take out a piece of paper. In the right hand corner print your name, under it print CW101- Section 2, and then put today’s date below that. Now I know a lot of you would prefer to be typing this on your laptops and spell checking, but that doesn’t show me your knowledge or understanding of the English language. No cursive writing, please print.”
He took a deep breath, “Now at the top center of the page please write: “Exercise One: How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” You may subtitle it with a title that you feel summarizes your summer. For example if you spent the summer in Europe - you might title it Hostel Journey, or From London to Budapest in 80 Days. You get the idea, now start writing.”
Ryan looked down at his paper and wrote almost without thinking: “I Was A Teenage Jockstrap”. He chuckled it was ridiculous, but it was true.