Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Making Social Media our B-word Since 2011
Check out our new Twitter page, twitter.com/WorldzOurCampus. This will help us further infiltrate your brains with our quips about curious characters at BYU, except those quips will now be only 140 characters long. Plus now it'll be like breaking news-style: we'll be making judgmental comments right as we think them, on the scene...you're so intrigued you can hardly stand it, right?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The First Day Talker
This is the person in your class who does not understand what the first day of class is for.
THINGS THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS IS FOR:
- Learning how many group projects there will be in the semester, and if that number is greater than one, dropping the class.
- Learning how many hotties are in the class.
- Learning if one is expected to compete with trendy girls and dress really cute every time...or if one could get away with wearing hoodies undetected.
- Learning if the professor is funny or not.
- Learning where to sit so as to avoid any stinky classmates.
In short, the first day of class is for learning--not for socializing. The FDT, however, feels the opposite way and is completely insufferable. He talks to his classmates, especially if they are strangers. Introductions are key for the FDT: he will introduce himself to every person sitting in his vicinity. Picture, if you will, the Brady Bunch grid. The FDT is Alice, sitting in the center, and he will not rest until he knows the names of everyone in the surrounding desks (Marcia clockwise through Jan).
Try as he might, the FDT's doom is inevitable--his fame only lasts for that first day of class. Try as he might, the FDT just doesn't have the endurance to keep the coveted position of class clown. It's like he's trying to run a marathon with a sprinter's pace: you just can't start out with all your best material. The FDT uses it all up on the first day, only to get completely worn out by Day 3, which is when the Human Footnote will creep up from behind after pacing herself efficiently and claim the title of Loudest Classmate for her own.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Bookstore Blast From The Past
It's a new semester with new classes and new professors that don't know what a bonehead procrastinator you are. You go to the bookstore with high hopes for this new start. This is the semester you're not going to rely on online summaries. You're going to use sources other than wikipedia for your scholarly articles. You're not going to spend the wee hours of the night on sites like this or this so that you can have more energy than a banana peel for your eight am class.
With this euphoria of new beginnings you enthusiastically greet someone you once knew marginally, but now know only through the info that shows up in facebook's newsfeed. After the questions that are supposed to sum up the years since you've seen each other, you casually resume your textbook hunt. But then, not one more book down your list, who should round the aisle but this relative stranger whom you so warmly greeted not one minute before. You both feign surprise at seeing each other again, as if everyone shops for their books like this guy does. Then you both ask one or two more obligatory questions with furrowed brows to make it seem like you've been burning to know the answer, but really you're just filling the dead air. Then, politely, you make sure to turn the opposite way you need to go just because it will mean you don't have to browse with an awkward silence breathing down your neck.
Going the opposite direction, you think you're safe from another increasingly bumbling conversation, but then your best friend you hardly know pops out behind the iClickers. You both insert some overdone jokes about Person A stalking Person B. Neither of you think they are funny. Both of you laugh. Then there's that awkward little pause where both of you are searching the peripheries for a polite escape:
"Ok, well I better look at staples now..."
"Yeah, staples are great..."
"See ya never--I mean later!"
Fed up with the pressure of trying to pull a friendship out of mid-air, you abandon the rest of your textbooks and just go to checkout. Within seconds you are enveloped in a maze of people snaking through the line, and who should you see? You guessed it. Now you've got to deal with a new conversation that has to be perfectly timed--too short and you'll have to just exhale loudly, too long and you'll have to shout about things you care nothing about while they snake in and out of view for the next half hour. Next year, you're buying on Amazon.
With this euphoria of new beginnings you enthusiastically greet someone you once knew marginally, but now know only through the info that shows up in facebook's newsfeed. After the questions that are supposed to sum up the years since you've seen each other, you casually resume your textbook hunt. But then, not one more book down your list, who should round the aisle but this relative stranger whom you so warmly greeted not one minute before. You both feign surprise at seeing each other again, as if everyone shops for their books like this guy does. Then you both ask one or two more obligatory questions with furrowed brows to make it seem like you've been burning to know the answer, but really you're just filling the dead air. Then, politely, you make sure to turn the opposite way you need to go just because it will mean you don't have to browse with an awkward silence breathing down your neck.
Going the opposite direction, you think you're safe from another increasingly bumbling conversation, but then your best friend you hardly know pops out behind the iClickers. You both insert some overdone jokes about Person A stalking Person B. Neither of you think they are funny. Both of you laugh. Then there's that awkward little pause where both of you are searching the peripheries for a polite escape:
"Ok, well I better look at staples now..."
"Yeah, staples are great..."
"See ya never--I mean later!"
Fed up with the pressure of trying to pull a friendship out of mid-air, you abandon the rest of your textbooks and just go to checkout. Within seconds you are enveloped in a maze of people snaking through the line, and who should you see? You guessed it. Now you've got to deal with a new conversation that has to be perfectly timed--too short and you'll have to just exhale loudly, too long and you'll have to shout about things you care nothing about while they snake in and out of view for the next half hour. Next year, you're buying on Amazon.
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