My time at school is rapidly coming to an end.
Thank the Lord because I’m so sick of reading countless pages of classics by Dickens, Stein, Thoreau and the like (#humblebrag). I’m also incredibly tired of slaving over analytical essays only to get them back with an “A” and a “great job” hastily scribbled on top (#humblebrag). I’m bored with lectures about the religious allegories in Moby Dick (#humblebrag) or the Cubist influence on Ezra Pound’s poetry (#humblebrag).
But mostly what I’m sick of is you, person sitting near me in class. (#notkidding #ihateyou)
Because I’ve spent the last few weeks of classes contemplating how to kill that person while making it look like an accident, I’ve decided to vent my frustrations in yet another installment of KB’s Top Five Ways to Piss Me Off.
5. Bringing Food to Class
I’m going to be honest, you guys. I don’t understand the draw of eating food in class. I’m never more self-conscious than when I’m eating. Am I crunching too loud? Do I have food in my teeth? Am I swallowing really loudly? What if I choke?
I can’t even imagine bringing my food neurosis into the classroom yet every day there is at least one person who brings a full five-course meal to class—complete with candles and a nice Chianti.
Most of the time, the food is either super noisy (it’s déjà vu all over again) or very smelly. Yesterday, the girl in front of me was eating an orange which basically made the whole room smell like someone was disinfecting the place while the other day someone was eating Cheez-its and sent that terrible burned-cheese smell wafting all over the room. I just don’t get it. Our classes are 1 hour and 15 minutes long. Can you really not wait until after class? Are you really that hungry? No. I can tell you right now that you will survive an hour of hunger. It’s not like you live in Africa or something.
4. Sitting in Front
I know I could bitch about the people who sit in the back of class just as easily but I’ve always had a problem with suck-ups more than slackers. If you sit in the front row of seats, I already know you are the antithesis of me and have already decided to hate you. See, by your sitting up front, I know that you will be the type of person who makes comment after comment and laughs at every single stupid little joke the professor makes. I also like to flatter myself in thinking that the professor can see right through this act and that they loathe you and your over-eagerness as much as I do.
As a matter of fact, yesterday, my class was held outside and one such person was so excited she could barely contain herself. Seriously, it was like a puppy. I half expected her to chase a squirrel up a tree and then relieve herself in the grass. However, she was content merely waving in the most obvious manner possible to a passing friend while whipping out her Lisa Frank folder (no joke). Due to the ridiculousness of the situation, I couldn’t hold in my smirk. Those who know me well know EXACTLY which smirk I’m talking about: the “omg-look-at-this-idiot-then-check-out-my-evil-smirk” smirk. The teacher happened to catch both the wave and the smirk and I am convinced she smirked in return. That’s what you get, Front-Row-Sitter.
3. Pen Clicking
I (click) can’t (click) stand (click) when (click) you (click) click (click) your (click) pen. It makes me want to “click” your pen where the sun don’t shine. It is the most annoying sound in the world. I know I’m not the only person who feels this because with each “click” I see backs around the room straighten. Jaws clench. Eyes dart to the perpetrator. Loud sighs or scoffs. Yet the pen clicker is a special breed of person who has no awareness of anyone around them and continues clicking their pen in peace. And I (click) continue to (click) premeditate (click) murder.
2. Going to the Bathroom
I would like to preface this statement by saying that I know there are emergencies and that is not the situation I’m talking about here. Remember when we all got to college and realized with wonder that we no longer had to raise our hands or get a hall pass to use the restroom? You could just stand up whenever you felt like and go with no excuses and with no permission. Yes, truly, this was freedom.
Since the first few weeks however, the novelty has worn off. Now that I’m a few months away from graduating, one of the last things I feel like doing is waking up from my nap in class long enough to get up, fight my way through the aisles, inevitably struggle to open the door before having it slam shut at a surprisingly loud decibel level, and head to the bathroom. Like I said, class isn’t that long. I can wait. Unfortunately, I’m one of the few people who seems to feel this way because my classes have become something of a duck-duck-goose game where someone is always running around or sitting down or standing up. Honestly, it’s disrespectful to the professor and disrespectful of those of us who are trying to get into a REM cycle.
1. Taking Diligent Notes
I do know that some classes require you to take notes. Trust me, I have a chemistry major for a roommate, I get it. She has countless notebooks filled with nifty little diagrams and equations and formulas. Or, so she tells me. I’m not convinced they aren’t just doodles like the ones that fill pages of my notebooks. I don’t have a problem with notes like that.
What I do have a problem with is people writing down every word that falls out of the professor’s mouth. 5% of my tests are being able to identify an author and title of a work by reading a few sentences of it. The other 95% is managing to bull sh!t some barely coherent response to said work that is just vague enough to seem deep and insightful. Neither of those things are helped by you writing down the fact that Ezra Pound broke a chair in Gertrude Stein’s house in Paris (which he did) or that the last thing Herman Melville was working on before he died was Billy Budd, Sailor (which it was). That stuff simply isn’t important unless you are a contestant on Jeopardy. Let’s be honest, I’ve definitely thought about it ("What is, Melville sucks, Alex?"). But unless you are training for a game show, there is no reason for you to write it down. So… STOP IT.
And with that, Friends, we’ve reached the end of another installment of KB’s Top Five Ways to Piss Me Off. And, as always, I’m left feeling angry with the never-ending stupidity of people, sadness that I must live among such people, and frustration that there are so many more things I want to complain about.
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