Time is Money

I feel like I might have mentioned this before, but let me make this perfectly clear. I hate it when professors go overtime. Absolutely hate it. I don't like it when they let us out earlier either and it bugs me when people start packing up 3 minutes before class ends. I will give the professor a 30 second grace period, like they did in interp events, ya know? But beyond that, you're wasting my time.

It's incredibly rude! You have my attention and time from the second that clock hits the hour, or half hour depending on the start of class, to the very end of the 50 or 75 minutes. After that, we're done. I have other classes to go to, a bus to catch, a meeting to attend. I am not responsible for making sure that you transfer all your information to us in the time allotted. That is your problem.

My photojournalism professor is notorious for this, especially when we are critiquing photos. He'll go 5 minutes overtime without a thought. It's only when we're pushing 8 minutes overtime and the class after us is pushing through the door that he's like, "Oh, I suppose we should vacate the premises." He says that too! Gosh, it irks me so much. Now, for the 5th time in a row, instead of being able to go home and shower before my next class, I am sitting in one of our unions, passing the hour. I suppose he thinks it is acceptable because he cancels class often and on days that we don't critique, he lets us out sometimes 15 minutes early. It's nice of him. I do appreciate the time off. But I feel like instead of canceling class that often, he could take two class periods to critique and we wouldn't be rushed and there would be no need to go overtime.

But on the flip side of this, as I mentioned, is when people start packing up and putting away their notebooks or laptops 3-5 minutes before the end of class. I feel when people do this, they are telling the professor that they don't respect them. And when professors go overtime, they're telling us that they don't respect us! It's a terrible conundrum that I'm not sure how to fix. What do you guys think?

Relationships in College: Part 3

I has come to my attention that people are doing something I find more than a little ridiculous these days. It's called "talking." It's not face to face talking and having conversations. Oh no, that would be far too simple. It's texting. It's a freaking text based relationship.

I think this might be worse than online relationships.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying never text your significant other or never Skype (I don't EVEN want to know about the dirty Skyping sessions. Recently learned that those existed too. EW) or never IM each other until 2am. No. Do all those things. Just freaking establish an official relationship first.

My roommate got involved with this guy she met almost 2 months ago. He came up to visit for a weekend and since then they've texted a lot. Never really talked on the phone. The guy doesn't have frequent access to internet, so they can't do the online thing. Just texting. But he'd text her "Good morning sunshine" frequently and the last thing she'd read before bed was "Love you, sweet dreams, can't wait to see you again," or something of the like. Now, I'm not one to judge for moving into a relationship so quickly - god knows I am certainly capable of falling faster than an anvil for a new guy - but there was no relationship. They were just texting. Oh, excuse me. They were just "talking."

Two options: read or watch. Or both! It's more fun to have options. =)



Talking?! Seriously?! What are we, middle schoolers? Isn't that what a middle school relationship should be? When you guys hold hands during passing periods and your groups eat lunch together and you text constantly? Am I right?! I feel like I'm going crazy for expecting a relationship in college to be an actual serious relationship with two people committed to each other with physical and emotional intimacy. Under the talking doctrine there's just...what? Fake intimacy? False commitment? Shit son, why don't you just say you're hooking up. Oh wait! You never see the guy. So you really are just talking then. But it's a relationship. Riiiiiight.

Please, someone explain this to me. I just don't get it. Even less than I understand the friends with benefits. I need to write about the random hook up. I haven't experienced it, but at least I understand that a little bit better.

Fall

One thing I really appreciate since I've moved from CA to the Midwest is the changing of the seasons. In CA, you know it's fall when the highs move into the 70s and a few trees drop their leaves. In the Midwest, fall is when the leaves turn all sorts of colors and acorns rain on your head as you walk through the quad and when the lows are mid 30s and highs are 50s. In CA, you know it's fall when the sky randomly clouds over for a few minutes and the fog hangs around little longer in the mornings. In the Midwest, you know it's fall when the wind picks up and it's cloudy for almost a day and then the storms come for 3 or 4 hours and the day after it's completely still.

Allow me to paint you a picture. I wore jeans and a blue v-neck today. Plus a black/grey plaid scarf. Plus flip-flips. I walked out of my 5pm lab tonight around sunset. You wouldn't have known that though - the sky was a deep grey. It was surprisingly warm, probably mid 60s even accounting for the at least 15mph winds. I turned on my music player to this song and drummed and hummed and lip synced and danced my way to the bus. I have lab on the very north end of campus. The bus stop is in front of the student union, which is about as far south as you can go on the campus for classes. It's a solid 10 minute walk. So there I am, scarf twirling around me, flip-flips falling off my feet b/c I keep kicking them everywhere and jumping around. I got some weird looks from the engineering students. Then again, I usually do, so it's not terribly surprising. I think I made someone jump when I started singing with "And I replied you're listening to it here!" Most of the walk is under trees too, so I was hopping from leaf to crunchy leaf and making lots of noise.

And I couldn't help but feel happy. Like this is what college is about. I'm finally where I want to be in my life. A distant friend and I sat next to each other on the bus last week and we talked about how we've grown in college, what paths we went down that maybe we shouldn't have, which ones we liked. And I feel like it could all be summed up in that moment when I was dancing under the acorn shower. Contentment. You're at ease. You know what you want and how to get there and you don't have to be concerned with anything else that's going on, you're just living right in that moment. Sort of a peace and clarity thing going on. I think I have one of those moments every fall when the weather changes like this. It's quite wonderful.

Doors

I'm not sure if this is a college thing or a Midwest thing, so I'd like to throw it out there for your thought. I've been at college for two full years and a couple months now, and I've had plenty of time to go back to the real world for extended periods of time and travel around the country and all that stuff. And I've noticed something.

No matter what college you're at, people hold doors open for others. Now, it's not always the official, "here let me get that door while I let a whole line of people walk in." No, I'm not saying that, but people do indeed push/pull doors open behind them or wait for people to go through...it's not just the selfish "get the door for myself and myself only" mentality I dealt with in high school. I think it has to do with the massive volume of people rushing in and out of buildings, but I can't be certain. It might just be a Midwest thing, since I've never been to a West coast college during their normal school year, but I'm inclined to think that's not so. I am fairly certain it's just a college thing though because people certainly don't do this outside of college towns. I get doors slamming shut in my face anytime I go back home or to an area that isn't centered around the college. People just aren't as aware of other people.

I think it's a really great little gesture that makes people a bit happier. It's really not a big deal, but isn't it nice when you go to open a door and it's not coming back at you with full force from the guy ahead of you who just barged his way through? And you think to yourself, oh, yay, that was more convenient. And you hold the door open as you walk in so the person behind you doesn't have to slam their way through either and the chain just continues! We'd be saving arm strength and helping rid the world of grumpy people at the same time! But people don't do that in the real world. I had someone almost slam into me when I was walking into a restaurant (side note: Japanese totally ruined my ability to spell that word, I never do it right). I was at the end of my group and I held the door open behind me and I guess the person thought I wouldn't and he kinda rushed forward and yanked it back and caused a great deal of noise. I jumped (naturally, you all know how jumpy I am) and spun around and he had this surprised look on his face. "Oh. Sorry...I thought..." "It's okay, I'm jumpy," and I rush away.

So here's what I'm wondering. Do you guys hold doors open for people at college? What about in the "real world"? Do people hold doors open for you? Do you think it makes any difference? On my way to class today, I held a door open for a potential future student and her mother and they seemed very surprised. The whole big, "Oh! Thank you!" thing and I just nodded and smiled a bit. Is it really that big of a deal to hold a door open for others?

Accomplished

I can cross a couple things off my life-to-do list now. One is coordinate (and mostly make) a meal for a large group. The other is determine if I'll be able to handle a group of teenagers.

I succeeded at both. 24 servings of chicken and mixed veggies (with tons of chili and garlic powder and a bit of butter) and homemade mashed potatoes with cheese and globs of butter and garlic powder and pepper. I have an overflowing bowl of delicious leftovers in my fridge. Fruits of my labor.

See, I volunteer 7 hours a week at an afterschool program for all grade levels. It's kinda for a teaching class, but I'm going waaaay beyond the call of duty regarding hours here. It's not in the nicest area of Columbia, so we provide one decent meal for these kids. Usually there are at least 4 staff members there, but today there were only 3 of them. And the one who was supposed to cook didn't show up. We usually serve dinner at 5. At 4:50, we figured out this person wasn't coming in. So a staff member, Ms. M (we call everyone Ms. or Mr. at this place), and myself started cooking. But Ms. M doesn't like to cook and we couldn't find the meal sheet (which tells us what to cook) and on top of all that, she had to leave at 5:30. So we pull out potatoes and mixed veggies. I start scrubbing away at potatoes, she cooks veggies. Then we search for a protein. There's chicken. We fed them chicken already this week. There's pork. Who knows how to cook pork? Ground meat. They did that just yesterday. Chicken it is. We'll put some new spices on it. Perfect. Throw it in the oven and heat it up. It's pre-cooked, right?

No. Of course not. So while we're worrying about non-cooked chicken and cutting up the potatoes and getting the dang water to boil so we can cook them and somehow bring non shredable American cheese (not exactly sure why we felt we needed to shred the cheese) into the whole mix, Ms. M finds the original list. Shepherd's pie with carrots. Doesn't Shepherd's pie already have carrots in it? Do we have time to cook the stuff into pies? We're already going with this...thing. Shepherd's pie can be another time. Speaking of time, she's outie. And I'm in charge. It's just my second week. And I have a group of 5 teenagers throwing floppy cheese bits at each other in the middle of my kitchen.

So we get to work. One girl watches the veggies, one girl watches the chicken, the boys wash and chop potatoes and somehow will the water to boil and cook them and then drain and mash them. Did I mention I have a habit of taking over when people try to cook? It happens to me a lot. I don't mean to. But I end up just doing everything, even though I assign people to do stuff. So that veggies girl ends up setting out plates, the chicken girl ends up cutting chicken and pouring milk with one of the boys, a girl who is part of the program helps me with the mashing and mixing (and tossing cheese in?) of potatoes and before I know it, we're plating. And this time I give everyone a job and I let them stick to it.

And they all listened! Now, granted this was a group of volunteers so they're willing to help and take direction, but they hadn't been alerted that I was put in charge. And they've all been helping out longer than I have. And more often. But they respected my authority and it helped things go smoothly. And a lot of them complimented me on what I made and how I ran things after the fact. It was really awesome.

And even beyond that, more kids in the program are calling me by my name and the staff members are chatting with me, asking how my day went, and we're learning about each other and I'm helping kids learn what verbs are vs. nouns and it's all just really good stuff. I'm making a difference and that's something that was lacking in my former career path.