Opinion | My first real day on campus

Angelina Hicks, News Editor

“Hundreds of bodies circle me when so recently none existed.” 

“Twenty-six eyes meet mine; this didn’t happen through my computer screen.”

“Remind me, how am I supposed to talk to other people again?”

I wrote those three sentences after my first day of the semester. Known as “American” sentences, they’re modeled after the haiku and each contain 17 syllables. I was given an assignment in my creative writing class to experiment with this type of poetic structure while reflecting on something unusual I experienced recently. 

The most interesting thing I had to write about was my first real day of in-person class as a Chapman University student.

Last year was my freshman year, and it occurred almost entirely online. I spent those two semesters writing for The Panther about the coronavirus pandemic’s ramifications on the traditional freshman experience, my choice to attend Chapman during a time of global crisis and my experience taking a hybrid class, which I was able to attend in-person for a few weeks.

The saga has reached what feels like a turning point with this year’s curriculum taking place fully in person. My college experience finally feels like it has begun as I walk through the crowded Attallah Piazza, eating a sandwich from SubConnection between classes.

It’s thrilling to see the commotion on campus and walk into a classroom where every seat is filled — I’ve never seen Chapman so alive before. When I was getting ready to attend this school, everyone told me that I will always see people I know while I’m walking around campus, and my classes will all be filled with familiar faces.

This past week has proved all those people right.

I had no idea I knew this many people, let alone that this many people knew me. Even after a full year online, people are running up to me on Memorial Lawn to catch up, I’m waving to a handful of other students on my way to every class, and when I do arrive at class, more often than not, there is someone I know whom I can sit next to.

I’ve experienced first-hand the tight-knit community that this university has to offer, and it’s been so exciting to live.

However, the first week has been equally anxiety-inducing.

COVID-19 is still entirely real and active on our campus. During the first few days of class, the number of positive cases practically doubled overnight. The filled-to-the-brim rooms I’m walking into and the crowds huddled outside Beckman Hall definitely bring a level of fear with them.

Chapman’s number of positive COVID-19 cases entered the hundreds in a matter of days. Watching so many people get sick so quickly, with basically no power to do anything about it, brings a sense of uneasiness I’m sure the vast majority of the student population can relate to.

It feels eerily like early 2020, when numbers were rising, and we didn’t know what was coming next. Just being unaware of the future is enough to induce anxiety, and seeing the numbers rise on a daily basis isn’t helping. 

The next few weeks are so unclear, and the worst part is, there are very few voices of reason to help. No one quite knows what to do next.

I marinated on all of this while sitting in my creative writing class. It’s really hard to think of anything else when every conversation I overhear has the word “COVID” sprinkled in. 

As if the ongoing pandemic weren’t enough cause for concern, I’m newly confronted with relearning a skill I hadn’t even realized I’d forgotten: communicating.

As an introvert, each classroom icebreaker and introduction completely exhausted me. When I finally got to my creative writing class, my fourth and last class of my first day back, I was given the opportunity to write about all the emotions I experienced that day. 

The anxiety and excitement both swirling within me, I started adding to my American sentences.

“I’ve sat behind a computer screen for so long, I didn't realize how comfortable I was getting. This girl — pen on paper, sitting in a classroom, 26 eyes staring into her’s — doesn’t know what to do next. She wished she could ask for help, but not even those 26 eyes know any better. No one knows where to turn next. Do you?”