Free Writing - Significant Event

I have been lucky enough to have had many significant events in my life. I have made many mistakes and experienced many times of redemption. So, I guess you might say that for the good or the bad I have experienced significance in my life. One such event was the decision to go back to school. I have tried on more than one occasion to re-start my education. I have previously failed in my attempts. I wanted what I had decided was a life I deserved and I knew that it required a certain pay scale and education level to attain that status. Through some basic reasoning that calculated to one answer, an education was top priority. I knew that without a proper education with a certificate to prove it, that my dreams would be a moot point.
My first step was how to turn this dream into an actual reality. That took a bit more doing than I had expected. I had daydreamed on many occasions what my college experience would be like. What it actually was, now that was a different story. Having very little experience in a college setting before, I had no idea how to truly visualize what was in store for me!
I sat nervously and fidgety in the open loft-like room. Second floor, to the left, check in at the desk, the directions had been. I was thrilled that I had made it this far! The long walk from the parking lot was hard enough, and then there was what seemed like a slow death march up the stairs to the front doors of the Information Commons. I cleared my dry throat and tried to sound like I knew what I was doing when I asked the receptionist where I would begin my journey. Second floor, to the left, check in at the desk. Well, here I was. I had signed my name like so many others on a long list of those waiting, generic blue ink pen in shaking hand I scrawled my name across the blank space indicated. Why was it so hard to remember what my name was anyway? Why was I so nervous? Had the room lacked oxygen this much when I first entered? Did the fluorescent lights above me glare so hot and bright then? I squirmed around in the hard waiting room style chair that I had deposited myself into. I waited in the still air to hear my name called, to know that it was my turn. I heard the nervous rustlings of the others, the papers crinkling, throats clearing, impatient fidgeting just like me. I heard the clerks chatting cheerily in their cubicles, awaiting some silent signal, I imagined, that would alert them to our performance time. A test of our skills, that is what was required of us. A test to place me in my slot I had heard. I didn't know where I fit at this point. Was the room always this stuffy? The wait was becoming unbearable, I needed to think of something else. I began to count the tiles in the ceiling above me. 1, 2, 3, 46, and then I heard it, My name. My name! My turn had finally come!