When Classroom's Attack and Other Grad School Problems

Hey.

How was your Monday?  Were you as disappointed in the snow as I was?  Yes, I liked my snow day, but TCNJ didn't cancel so I still had class.

Today I was a total brat about having to go to TCNJ

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Not that bad, but kinda in the same vein.

As my time with grad school is coming to an end (I really do like school but I just want to be done and working), I am having a much less tolerant attitude for some nonsense and shenanigans than I previously have had.  

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Sometimes I also think my lecture hall is out to physically harm me...just a theory but an accurate one.

1.  Leave your trash on your desk.  What's the matter with you?  Do you think I wanna come in to class and sit behind your used coffee cup?  No.  No, I do not.  Do I want to sit behind your left over sandwich and orange rinds?  Nope.  The previous class' food du jour?  PIZZA!  SIX PIZZAS!  

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cower to the trash

2.  The Bang-Your-Shin-Chairs.  My classes this semester have confusing chairs!  I can't sit in them.  They swivel independent of your body control choices.  First you have to pull them sideways? 

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Next, you have to pull it back.

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Third don't wear a dress or skirt.  You will look like an heiress circa 2006 and be flashing people.

Fourth (there should never be 3 steps prior to you having to sit in a chair), you have to slide into the chair  like a classy lady

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Fifth (again, toooooo many steps) you need to make sure you follow preschool sitting rules:

• fold your hands
• feet flat on the floor
• do not kick your feet.

Why?  Oh, because if you so much as lift your feet off the ground you will send your shins colliding into the painful half desk and welp

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3.)  Being assigned readings that you have already read but can't remember the jist so you have to reread them.

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4.)  Not getting to park in the New Ed lot.  Ok, this is a real life first world problem right here.  Sometimes I don't get parking in the close lot and I have to walk half a mile to my class.  This annoys the bejeezus out of me.  Mostly because I feel like as a grad student I have the natural right to park in this lot.  I paid my dues.  This is the same logic that dictated the elementary school bus rules.  The 2nd, 5th, and 8th graders get to ride in the back of the bus because of Divine Right.   Usually I think Grease and use the whole The Rules Are There Are No Rules mantra and go the wrong way in the lot.  Rude?  Absolutely.  Necessary for sanity?  100%

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5.)  Not sitting at tables.  We now sit in a lecture hall with killer desks with equally malicious chairs who are undeserving of the soft cushy connotation previously held by those contraptions of demonic terror listed in number 2.  This girl likes her tables.  I like sitting with 4-6 of my closest friends discussing life, current events, family stuff, eye rolling, and fellow classmate people watching.

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Don't deny me my happiness, desks!

6.) When one of your friends is absent.  I'm not going to lie, I need all my people around me in class in order to function.  I feel like John Legend what would I do with out your smart mouth (ps that song is amazeballs and I'm guilty of jamming to it in my dorkily in my car) because we function better as a unit.  As I said before (in a delirious moment brought on by an annoying barrage of questions from The Questioner aka the person in your class that just asks nonsense questions for the sole purpose of prolonging class) This group runs on good looks and wit.  We just work better as a cohesive unit!  Like when one of your favorite sitcom stars goes away to shoot a movie and they say that they went on a work trip or something.  The show is still great, but it's not the same.

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7.) Non-Stop Question Asking.  I like a good question.  You know, breaks up a lecture, enhances my knowledge, gives me more questions.  I do not like 1005426260206 questions...from the SAME person.  Do not ask questions about your own personal life.  Do not district bash.  Be happy you have a job.  Your questions are annoying us all and we all want to cry when you speak.  A good way to self-assess?  Did I ask 25 questions in 10 minutes?  If the answer is yes, then yes you asked too many.  

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8.)  People who do not understand that the last 5 minutes of class is not the time to start asking all of your questions.  Class ends at 7:20, think like a deli-the grill closes 15 minutes before.  Grill is a euphemism for your questions.  7:05 end of questions.  Some of us girls have lives.  Some of us girls have The Bachelor to watch.  I need a full 40 minutes to get home.  Do not carve into my The Bachelor time.

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Anyway, complainy rant is over now.  In 2 days it will be TCNJ's Spring Break and I will get my nights free to do work.  

xoxo,

E