Many Years Ago

Spain

The young woman gazed in awe at the buildings now surrounding her. The university in Grenada boasted the best chemistry program and now she could see why. The buildings all looked brand new or only a year or two old at most. She’d yet to see the labs but if the outside of the buildings was anything to go by, the labs had to be state of the art. She held in a squeal of excitement. It’d taken ages to convince her parents to let her study so far from home and she wasn’t about to squander this chance.

She raced into the nearest building, looking for her first class of the day inorganic. Inorganic was followed by organic III, since she’d taken the previous two semesters at her previous school. After that she had a small break for lunch then it was on to p-chem (physical chemistry). The next day was analytical chem and her inorganic lab. Wednesday was biochem and her labs for organic III and p chem. Thursday was environmental chem and the analytical and bio chem labs. Friday found her in industrial, polymer, and theoretical. Though, she wasn’t quite sure she actually wanted the analytical, environmental, industrial, polymer, or theoretical classes. She wanted variety, sure, but her interests were more geared towards the medical side of chemistry. Something her father could not stand and that her mother strongly disapproved of. She couldn’t care less. She’d love to take something like forensics or medical chemistry but neither of her parents would approve of those. Perhaps she could change her schedule to reflect her interests after the first week. There was usually a grace period where you could add or drop classes with no academic consequences. It would also be harder for her parents to make her change her schedule back. That decided, she just needed to choose three other classes that reflected her interests more, like say pharmacology, food chemistry, immunology (though that was a branch of biochem), or perhaps something to do with nanotechnology. She could decide all of that later. Right now, she needed to get to class.

She slid into her seat in the lecture hall just as the professor entered it. She sighed in relief. Her mother would kill her if she were ever late to anything, other than her own party.

A lady must always be on time, her mother would say to her. To be late is an outright insult to the host.

Or in Seona’s case, the professor. She sighed. Even here, hundreds of miles away from her, Seona couldn’t get her mother’s voice out of her head. It was the most irritating voice she’d ever had to endure for any length of time and that was saying something. Her mother’s voice was a cross between the raspy voice of a two pack a day smoker and a whiny (but articulate) three-year old. And her mother wondered why she wanted to get away? Aside from the fact it was a small taste of freedom (one she’d not likely get again); it was a get away from her mother’s annoying voice. Her mother’s voice grated on her nerves more than the woman herself did, a small miracle in and of itself.

By now, the professor was going over the syllabus that was slowly making its way around the lecture hall. Seona cursed herself for getting so deep in her thoughts about her parents, mother especially.