Tuesday, January 25, 2005
The Beginning of the End
Monday at 5pm was the first meeting of a class I'm taking that's being taught by my very own advisor. Needless to say, being a somewhat shy and timid individual (stop laughing, assholes, I really am!), I was a bit apprehensive about the class. I arrived at school at 4:30 so I could loiter in the lobby shmoozing with friends until exactly five minutes before class. I am a generally punctual individual. This means that I arrive on time for appointments, on time or a couple of minutes late for dates, half an hour to an hour late for parties (depending upon what the particular party circumstance calls for), and ON TIME for classes. Not ten minutes early, not ten minutes late, but ON TIME. For this particular class the schedule was as follows: 4:30 to 4:55 - loiter and shmooze, 4:55 to 5:00 - walk down the hallway very slowly to the classroom where the class is to be held.
At exactly 4:59pm EST I found myself staring blankly at two signs on the door of an empty classroom, the very classroom my class with my advisor about which I was apprehensive was allegedly to be held. Sign one read: Class GH540 to be held upstairs in room 111. Sign two read: Class GH591S to be held in Tarbutton 105. Now there are a couple of things that bear mentioning at this point in the story. First, I have no idea what the call number or whatever you call it for my class is. I only know the class name and professor and alleged location. At this point I remain calm, log into a computer to find my registration information and discover that my class is in fact the one relocated to the mysterious Tarbutton 105. Second, the School of Public Health is not only populated by all women, but is not actually very populous at all. That is to say that all of our classes are held in the School of Public Health building proper. Occasionally larger classes are held next door in the Nursing School auditorium. I have heard of meetings taking place over on the undergraduate campus in buildings called Cox Hall or Anthropology, but I have NEVER, in my time at this fine institution, ever heard tell of or encountered first hand a building called Tarbutton.
After a fruitful but slightly panicked trip upstairs to Student Services, I learned that Tarbutton in fact was the name of a building that was located outside, to the left, past the biomedical building, past the library, over the bridge, past the DUC, past Cox Hall, across the street, over another bridge, and across the grassy knoll from Anthropology. Fan-fucking-tastic. Any responsible and normally punctual student would notice that it is now ten minutes into class, there is quite a distance to be covered to get to said class, and likely decide to set off at a pace that could at least be described as a light jog. Not I. I decide to stroll and ponder why it is that I am the only person who seems to be in the same predicament. Apparently everyone else got the memo about the classroom change.
I arrived at the class taught by my advisor about which I was rather apprehensive not five, not 15, but 25 minutes late.
And as a post script, it bears further mentioning that I was forced to approach the professor/advisor at the end of class to beg for a copy of the syllabus which I had failed to receive by arriving 25 minutes into class at which point professor/advisor says, "I'm simply delighted that you're taking this class, simply delighted. I'm really looking forward to hearing what you have to say. I think you're going to be a valuable contribution to the theoretical discussions I hope to have here." It seems that during my one requisite meeting with the advisor oh so many months ago I mistakenly gave her the impression that I was, like, a particularly gifted and insightful social scientist or something when really my point was that I'm miserable with Biostatistics. It is only a matter of time before I'm called to deliver some nugget of theoretical wisdom. Pray for me, friends. Pray.
At exactly 4:59pm EST I found myself staring blankly at two signs on the door of an empty classroom, the very classroom my class with my advisor about which I was apprehensive was allegedly to be held. Sign one read: Class GH540 to be held upstairs in room 111. Sign two read: Class GH591S to be held in Tarbutton 105. Now there are a couple of things that bear mentioning at this point in the story. First, I have no idea what the call number or whatever you call it for my class is. I only know the class name and professor and alleged location. At this point I remain calm, log into a computer to find my registration information and discover that my class is in fact the one relocated to the mysterious Tarbutton 105. Second, the School of Public Health is not only populated by all women, but is not actually very populous at all. That is to say that all of our classes are held in the School of Public Health building proper. Occasionally larger classes are held next door in the Nursing School auditorium. I have heard of meetings taking place over on the undergraduate campus in buildings called Cox Hall or Anthropology, but I have NEVER, in my time at this fine institution, ever heard tell of or encountered first hand a building called Tarbutton.
After a fruitful but slightly panicked trip upstairs to Student Services, I learned that Tarbutton in fact was the name of a building that was located outside, to the left, past the biomedical building, past the library, over the bridge, past the DUC, past Cox Hall, across the street, over another bridge, and across the grassy knoll from Anthropology. Fan-fucking-tastic. Any responsible and normally punctual student would notice that it is now ten minutes into class, there is quite a distance to be covered to get to said class, and likely decide to set off at a pace that could at least be described as a light jog. Not I. I decide to stroll and ponder why it is that I am the only person who seems to be in the same predicament. Apparently everyone else got the memo about the classroom change.
I arrived at the class taught by my advisor about which I was rather apprehensive not five, not 15, but 25 minutes late.
And as a post script, it bears further mentioning that I was forced to approach the professor/advisor at the end of class to beg for a copy of the syllabus which I had failed to receive by arriving 25 minutes into class at which point professor/advisor says, "I'm simply delighted that you're taking this class, simply delighted. I'm really looking forward to hearing what you have to say. I think you're going to be a valuable contribution to the theoretical discussions I hope to have here." It seems that during my one requisite meeting with the advisor oh so many months ago I mistakenly gave her the impression that I was, like, a particularly gifted and insightful social scientist or something when really my point was that I'm miserable with Biostatistics. It is only a matter of time before I'm called to deliver some nugget of theoretical wisdom. Pray for me, friends. Pray.
