Chaotic Back-To-School Night

New school. New everything. We didn't know what to expect during Back-to-School Night at Bellarmine. The instructions to the parents were to list all of our son's classes, including the names of the teachers and their classrooms, and to wear comfortable shoes. From that, I figured it was going to be a chaotic night.

Looking at the schedule that was sent to all parents, our evening would have started at 6:30 (for freshmen), and would have ended at 9:45pm. What !!! On a Thursday night???? Well, I guess that's how it was.

We had our little carpool for this evening. We picked up Jenny (Nick's mom) at Starbuck's on Mission, and Grace (Coby's mom) at the parking lot of CVS in Warm Springs. Along the way, the wife and I were munching on our on-the-road McDonald's dinner. We arrived quite early, with ample parking behind Liccardo, and some time to spare. We dropped by the Campus Store for a little shopping, which included a bleacher seat that will come in handy in the upcoming volleyball games.

Fr. Paul Sheridan, SJ

At 6:30pm, all freshmen parents gathered at the gym to hear Bellarmine president, Fr. Paul Sheridan, speak.
Aside from welcoming us, as new members of the Bellarmine family, and explaining how our children will be transformed into "men for others", he also talked about the actual cost of a student's education at Bellarmine. And this led to the family pledge, etc, etc, etc. And I will leave it at that. Period. These things are better left alone.

From there, we had to go to each of Jake's classes within 7 minutes. In each class, the teacher had 7 minutes to talk about his/her class before moving on to the next. Our first stop was our son's Homeroom class at Carney. By the way, there are about 6-7 buildings within the Bellarmine campus where classes are held. Part of our task was to learn where all these buildings were, as we go through our son's class schedule. And Carney was the first one. At Homeroom, we learned that this would be Jake's homeroom for the next four years. We also received a calendar and a copy of the family directory.

After 2 more classes, we had some sort of a break, wherein we had an opportunity to listen in on talks about Campus Ministry, Athletics, Student Counselling, and Christian Ministry, for the next 30 minutes. I did a quick dash to the car to drop off our shopping goodies. We certainly didn't want to be lugging them around all night. What followed next were the remaining 4 classes. Then, it was over. You can imagine the chaos and the madness, as parents moved across campus, from one building to another, trying to beat the 7-minute time.

On a side note.... students are given 10 minutes to move from one to class to the next. Why we, with lesser nimble feet, were given 3 minutes less was something I did not understand. And trying to go up four flights of crowded stairways wasn't exactly my definition of fun either.

With the last class done, everyone rushed to their cars, hoping to be out of the campus sooner than the rest. But everyone else had the same idea. For the next 15-20 minutes, we sat in line as each car snaked its way out of the parking lot behind Liccardo.

I guess we will be doing this again....????

Note: Author wishes to acknowledge Bellarmine College Preparatory for the use of the photograph in this post.