You mean we can register online?

The differences between preparing for our first semester of college last August and the upcoming second semester are huge, like night and day. We'll go into much more detail about our experiences as first-timers -- including the associated feelings of apprehension & confusion, and our overall perception that we were, in fact, retarded -- but right now we prefer to dwell on the relatively easy path on which we now seem to be traveling.

You see, even though Dennis, at least, had been through all this before, it was so long ago that it shouldn't even count. Plus, we're older now and our situation is very different. The first time around, for example, average high school grades were enough for a community college to grant a student its blessing. If grades weren't up to snuff, which was very difficult considering the low standards, students were required to take a sort of entrance exam. At that time a community college was little more than an extension of high school, and the schools seemed to feel that students academically unable to gain access to their classrooms should probably be in the military anyway. Comforting, eh?

At our age, though, how we did in high school was meaningless, and we both had to take an entrance/placement exam as part of the registration process. Now keep in mind, other than task-oriented performance tests at work and whatever is required to renew a driver's license, we didn't have much experience in the area of testing, and we were both absolute wrecks days in advance. How should we prepare for the complete unknown? In his previous life, Dennis had always gotten by on hookers and chocolate (just kidding, he doesn't eat that much chocolate), but Jennifer had trouble spelling algebra, let alone solving complex equations. Scary stuff.

This semester, however, it seems as if our school is rolling out the red carpet. We get e-mails and letters encouraging us to register for classes online. (No waiting in long lines with the less fortunates? Are you kidding?) In addition, we were able to register way before the general public, unlike our first semester when many of the classes we wanted were already full. We keep pinching ourselves every day...only now it's not just part of some perverted game (kidding, sort of).

Our hope is that the rest of the term will go just as smoothly: easier workload and more time for activities unrelated to school. The reality, though, is that we are not stupid (we do, afterall, have a semester of college behind us) and are prepared for just about anything. Dennis even started stocking a healthy supply of...uh, chocolate.