School Days

As I waited for the bus this morning, I got a tiny bit nostalgic. Up and down my street, elementary-school-aged children decked out in crisp new skirts and polo shirts, stiff and spotless new shoes, and brightly colored backpacks featuring characters from the latest Saturday morning cartoon lineup, hopped and skipped their way to the bus, about to start their first day of school. Hand in hand with parents who checked to make sure that shoelaces were tied and lunches were packed, these kids didn’t have the glum and gloomy faces that the passing of Labor Day weekend tends to bring about in the corporate world; instead, they looked fresh-faced, eager, and excited to return to the classroom—or at least to crack open their Dora the Explorer notebooks.

Watching them, I was brought back to the days when I was in that brand new pair of sneakers, with my perfectly organized pencil box and my shiny new Trapper Keeper zipped safely into my purple polka-dot backpack, and I couldn’t help but think something that my ten-year-old self never would have admitted to—that I actually missed that first day of school feel.

Yet, just because the days of picking out the perfect outfit for the class picture are over doesn’t mean that the first day of school has to be a thing of the past—especially on the UES. With the 92nd Street Y offering what just might be its most enticing array of classes yet, the first day of school is still a very real possibility. Here are some of the Y’s options this fall (click on class titles for more information on each).

Learning from the Masters: A drawing class that helps you to improve your own skills by studying the masters.

Photography: Inspiration and Vision: A seven-session workshop to help you get a bit more artistic with your camera.

Basic Six Ballroom will teach you and a partner the basics steps of the waltz, fox-trot, tango, swing, rumba, and cha-cha.

Tai-Chi Chuan: Learn the basics of the ancient Chinese martial art in a seventeen-session course that meets Monday evenings.

Lunchtime Yoga lets you take a break from your busy day on four Mondays from November through December.

Fall into Winter Reading: Read and discuss books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Devil in the White City, and One Hundred Years of Solitude over the course of five Tuesdays this fall.

Animation: State of the Art: Animated films like Shrek no longer appeal only to children. Study the art of animation and the current state of the genre.

Jazz Workshop: If you can read basic chords, you can learn to improv like some of the city’s greatest jazz musicians over the course of thirteen sessions starting in October.

Beginning Knitting: Learn the basics of this hot new hobby in eight sessions beginning in October.

Languages: Brush up on your high school-level French, or learn a new language altogether. The Y offers courses in French, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Yiddish.

For the Y’s full list of classes, click here—then pack up your new bookbag and enjoy your first day of school!