"He Was Fully Aware That We Were Shaving His Leg"
The bookcase sneezed at me.
My sister was giving me a tour of the library she works in, and right at the end, a set of waist-high bookcases sneezed. Had they been full-sized, I would have understood (after all, that's a lot of dust and books to keep track of), but waist-high ones have no excuse. Apparently they were just feeling rude.
And who wants to speak to rude bookcases? That'll show them.
In my sister's lecture today, someone asked a question regarding creative nonfiction (I wish I could remember the question, but I was zoning out), and it was about then that I went, "Creative what?!"
There's a concept. Makes a person wonder if there's a creative nonfiction version of a chemistry textbook out there somewhere. I could go for that -- my nonfiction reading is pretty well limited to the dry, not-so-creative form.
There's only so much you can do with equations and chemical formulas.
Anyway, this campus is monstrous. I come from a small, stand-in-one-place-and-see-every-building campus. This is a campus with its own busing system. I'm clearly out of my own comfort zone.
Still, it's pretty cool. I could people-watch for days.
I'm sitting in this library (which, in direct proportion to the rest of the campus, is huge and one of several), kicking back in a red-and-gold print chair that vaguely reminds me of the kind of thing you'd find in someone's great-aunt's house (usually smelling funny and covered in an old sheet -- the chair, not the great-aunt). Standard fluorescent lighting -- no mood lights for this Indian library. Plenty of interesting artwork, however, and an amusing librarian.
The beauty of the classroom is that it doesn't change much from school to school. The material changes, and the people and locations. But as sociology teaches us, the same "types" of people are everywhere.
Some general groups -- the studious, the "well, I had to take this eventually," and the ever-present "my friends are here and Mom's paying, so let's live it up!" Each group has it's tell-tale behavior; those that take notes obsessively, those that nap, and those that pass notes.
Yes, it's true. People pass notes all the way through college. It looks considerably more ridiculous, but it happens anyway.
The crowd gathered reflects the one who stands before it. Students sit rapt only for the truly interesting professors, rarely found and hard to hold on to (some schools only possess one or two). On the other hand, there are the multitudes of dull professors -- after all, most truly exciting speakers make a living motivating the eternally jaded. Even the studious drift off, those who don't even take notes start doodling, and people cough to keep themselves alert (sometimes enough to sound as though Morse code messages are being sent across the classroom).
Here, size doesn't matter. There could be 30 students or 300. The response doesn't change -- only the number of snorers around you.
That's all I've got for you from the U. Later!
PS -- The title sentence is something I overheard from a girl in the hallway on the way to my sister's dorm room.
Anarchy is better than no government at all.
My sister was giving me a tour of the library she works in, and right at the end, a set of waist-high bookcases sneezed. Had they been full-sized, I would have understood (after all, that's a lot of dust and books to keep track of), but waist-high ones have no excuse. Apparently they were just feeling rude.
And who wants to speak to rude bookcases? That'll show them.
In my sister's lecture today, someone asked a question regarding creative nonfiction (I wish I could remember the question, but I was zoning out), and it was about then that I went, "Creative what?!"
There's a concept. Makes a person wonder if there's a creative nonfiction version of a chemistry textbook out there somewhere. I could go for that -- my nonfiction reading is pretty well limited to the dry, not-so-creative form.
There's only so much you can do with equations and chemical formulas.
Anyway, this campus is monstrous. I come from a small, stand-in-one-place-and-see-every-building campus. This is a campus with its own busing system. I'm clearly out of my own comfort zone.
Still, it's pretty cool. I could people-watch for days.
I'm sitting in this library (which, in direct proportion to the rest of the campus, is huge and one of several), kicking back in a red-and-gold print chair that vaguely reminds me of the kind of thing you'd find in someone's great-aunt's house (usually smelling funny and covered in an old sheet -- the chair, not the great-aunt). Standard fluorescent lighting -- no mood lights for this Indian library. Plenty of interesting artwork, however, and an amusing librarian.
The beauty of the classroom is that it doesn't change much from school to school. The material changes, and the people and locations. But as sociology teaches us, the same "types" of people are everywhere.
Some general groups -- the studious, the "well, I had to take this eventually," and the ever-present "my friends are here and Mom's paying, so let's live it up!" Each group has it's tell-tale behavior; those that take notes obsessively, those that nap, and those that pass notes.
Yes, it's true. People pass notes all the way through college. It looks considerably more ridiculous, but it happens anyway.
The crowd gathered reflects the one who stands before it. Students sit rapt only for the truly interesting professors, rarely found and hard to hold on to (some schools only possess one or two). On the other hand, there are the multitudes of dull professors -- after all, most truly exciting speakers make a living motivating the eternally jaded. Even the studious drift off, those who don't even take notes start doodling, and people cough to keep themselves alert (sometimes enough to sound as though Morse code messages are being sent across the classroom).
Here, size doesn't matter. There could be 30 students or 300. The response doesn't change -- only the number of snorers around you.
That's all I've got for you from the U. Later!
PS -- The title sentence is something I overheard from a girl in the hallway on the way to my sister's dorm room.
Anarchy is better than no government at all.
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