In which high school, college, and elementary school collide

I was standing in the courtyard of the Upper School building at Woodward, and a lot of different people from my high school class were also there, but we were all adults. I realized that I had to take my senior year over again, but this time I would be taking graduate-level classes. I also realized that I was late for homeroom and I didn't have a note, but the Dean's office couldn't do anything to me because I was no longer a minor. An announcement over the loud speaker directed everyone to the pavilion in front of the Upper School where the cigar statue of Woodruff stood.

The juniors were TA's and they began handing out schedules to everyone. I had to take neuroscience, a history class about the American Civil War, and photography. I immediately began to worry about photography because I didn't have a camera with me and I had had very little formal instruction, so I didn't feel qualified to take a master's level class. They dismissed us and I headed toward the history building with a girl named O (with whom I actually took quite a few history classes in high school). The outside looked like the Woodward building, but the inside looked like Seelye Hall at Smith and I instantly felt more comfortable. The stairs were gentle and easy to climb and I remember thinking "This is like Smith" and it was kind of weird because it both was and wasn't Seelye Hall at that point.

We went to the top floor to the room where I hung the "Wilson is the Best of the Quad" banner and there was some kind of science fair going on. It was really hot and all the windows were open. The professor told us our assignment was to help high school kids with their science projects, and this was definitely Smith now and not Woodward. My student was doing a project on the small pox epidemic, as was really popular in the social science fairs when I was young, and she had a really realistic looking mannequin covered with pustules, which was gross but awesome. She told me she felt pretty good about winning but wanted me to scope out the competition, so I looked around. I found one girl who had the exact same project that I did when I was in 5th grade, "Why aren't there more women leaders?" with the red and blue graphs and everything, and I thought that it would probably go over really well at Smith. But then, when I was a kid, I lost (or rather, was disqualified from semifinals) because I didn't have a 3-D representation for my project, and neither did this girl. I felt kind of bad for her but then I was also happy for my student because she really wanted to win.