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January 16, 2007
First day of skool
Well, it's back to the old salt mine for me. Today was my first day of school after a lovely month off. Damn it all to hell.
The worst part about the first day of class is that you have to get there early in order to pick the best seat. Last semester, I arrived to my first class with a minute to spare, and I got saddled with the seat in the upper left hand corner of the room, which had two strikes against it, as I soon learned: first, the professor had a tendency to always call on the same people, one of whom is the person on the end. To make matters worse, the room was set up in such a way that the corner seats could not see the entirety of the blackboard. Not only was I always getting called on to give my views on abortion, but I was also unable to read half of the blackboard. And because law professors aren't always inclined to learn your name, they like seating charts so they can just look at their chart to figure out who you are. This means that you're stuck with the same seat all year.
As you can imagine, I verily wanted to get to class earlier so that I could pick a good seat. I got there in time, and I was able to pick a fairly decent seat. It's not in the back, and I can hear the professor, and it's on the end so I don't have to be squeezed in between two people. Of course, now that I scored this great seat, the damn professor doesn't have a seating chart, which suggests to me that you can sit anywhere you want, and some bitch is going to take my seat. Once you get your seat on the chart, it's in there. It's tattooed. It's branded. That's your seat.
I had the misfortune this time around to sit next to two girls that I remember from last year who would sit next to each other and chat on instant messenger instead of pay attention in class. This time, they didn't arrive at the same time and they had to sit with somebody else between them. I fear one of them is going to attempt to take my seat, because they look territorial and cliquey like that. If so, there will be hell to pay. I ain't givin' up my seat.
This brings me to my next point: seat possession. It is an ingrained principle that if you are taking a class, and somebody sits in a seat the first day, that's his seat for the rest of the class. Don't bother trying to sit there. It's like the land grabs when they opened up Oklahoma. First come, first served. Didn't come to class the first day to get a seat? Your loss, dipshit. You are stuck with the leftovers. Shoulda come sooner. To do otherwise is a faux pas of the highest magnitude.
I will never forget the time I walked into class and somebody I didn't recognize was sitting in my seat. I was forced to sit in another seat. It caused a nasty ripple effect. When the person who owned that seat came in, she was forced to sit in another seat, after first giving me a pretty substantial evil eye. I wanted to say, "Don't blame me, blame this clown who never comes to class!" But I didn't. Instead, I gave the interloper the evil eye. In reality, I wanted to smack him with a 2x4.
In short, just respect my seat. I'll respect yours.
entry no. 718
Posted by oz115 at January 16, 2007 11:29 AM
Comments
I disagree. Class started for me recently too and I fully understand the woes of the seat scramble (and damn those seating charts!! I'm 28 dammit) however I don't think you are guaranteed a seat every class just because you sit there once. Did you pay more to reserve that seat? Probably not. Just because you were there early does that guarantee you a prime seat all quarter?? Definitely not, you want it, you must fight every week. I like to bounce around and meet new people.
Posted by: G at January 16, 2007 07:47 PM