As the beginning of the semester rolled around, so did the students in their beds to wake up for the first day of classes. For some, the first day was Wednesday, Jan. 4. For others, it was Thursday, Jan. 5.

But for some, school didn’t start until next week, at least in their heads.

“I am not in denial,” professor Ian Denyle said to his wife on Jan. 4. “School starts next week. I’m still on vacation. Oakland is a great institution that recognizes our hard work and rewards us with much-deserved, long holiday breaks.”

Meanwhile, on campus, students began filing in to his fundamentals of algebra class, which was scheduled to start at 4 p.m. They sat in awkward silence as time passed by.

No one knew each other, so they pretended to check messages on their phones. They opened and closed their social media apps over and over, like children opening and closing the fridge in hopes that something new will appear.

At approximately 4:15 p.m., the silence was broken when one student exclaimed, “I say we leave at 4:20.”

The whole class burst into laughter at the lame joke and nodded in agreement.

“Why? We’re allowed to leave after 15 minutes, aren’t we?” asked freshman Chloe Less.

It took Less a minute to get the joke, but as soon as she did, she put her head down in shame. At 4:20, students left the room, and the lights went out in the empty classroom.

Ping! Professor Denyle’s email notification went off. The email’s subject was “Missed Class.”

Ping! Another email from a student titled “You Missed Class.”

Denyle’s eyes opened wide with horror. His stomach turned into a knot as he stared at his iPhone. He sat up on his living room couch and put down the hot cup of coffee that he had really been enjoying about a minute before.

“It was like that feeling when you’re in high school and you wake up an hour after your alarm went off, and you realize you’re late for class on the day of the final exam,” Denyle said. “Except this time, I was the professor and it was supposed to be the first day of class.”

Nita Fourpointe, a senior who has had perfect attendance in all of her years at OU and holds a perfect 4.0 GPA, wrote to Denyle that she was disappointed with his absence and how much it affected her education.

“I was really embarrassed,” Denyle said. “But the students shouldn’t be complaining. They got to go home early. It’s not like we were going to do anything, anyway. It was syllabus and icebreaker day.”

The professor might not have showed up, but there’s nothing like a dramatic start to the semester to bond the students in a class.

“I was really looking forward to playing the icebreaker games,” Fourpointe said. “They’re my favorite part of the semester.”