I love first days because you can be relatively certain that everyone is wearing a clean shirt. Because come September, you’ll see me teaching some nonsense about how we’ll use prime numbers to communicate with extraterrestrials and you’ll think, “Didn’t he wear that shirt yesterday?” 

But it won’t matter by then because we’ll know one another so well that we’ll know the true selves hidden beneath the shirts (be they clean or dirty). And one reason we’ll know each other so well is because of the strong first impression we made back when we were wearing clean shirts.

First impressions matter. But they mostly matter in how they wipe themselves away and get washed into the ocean of true camaraderie.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt