Friday, September 08, 2006

Thank you, John Sweeney! This makes my day, and Ma's too.

Update: Sigh. The Capital District speaks. Between the snark at this site, and the arrogant commenters applauding the snark here, it's no wonder animal advocates have to fight so hard and the victories are so sweet.

On another subject, my classes are awesome so far! Very interactive without too much prompting from me. I'm hoping it keeps up for the entire semester, it will be a pleasure. My Thursday night class is in the Humanities building, in a room with theatre style seating and a stage! It isn't huge - holds maybe 40-50 students (my class is 32). It was a little intimidating at first, but there are interesting and fun possibilities with such a room design.

I remembered something from the book My Freshman Year (written about in this post; Sya responds here) as I was standing in line at the campus coffee shop. The author mentions that there must be a common understanding among young students of what type of backpack is preferred; she didn't know how this was communicated, because clearly all had not purchased them in the same store. She bought one at a big box (her first mistake, in my opinion) and she noticed once she arrived on campus that almost all other students had backpacks that were smaller, with less pockets and zippers, they were Jansport brand, and made out of a different material than hers. So yesterday, I decided to take note. It took my mind off the culture shock I feel when I am in the cafeteria at the beginning of the semester (I am just not used to seeing so many people; the crowds and organized chaos take some time to feel normal). Backpacks are definitely smaller and made from a different material than in "my" day, and Jansport is a popular brand (but there were others, mostly athletic brands such as Puma). However, I saw an equal number of students with briefcase type bags (probably containing a notebook computer?), quite a few women who had large fabric over the shoulder "satchels," and a sprinkling of granola-ish students with tattered canvas bags.

2 comments:

Sya said...

That sounds about right. I use one of the larger bookbags out of necessity though. I don't live on campus and between lab and class, I don't have time to drive back home, so I need something big enough to contain all my books, papers, laptop, water and food.

What I've noticed were girls with tons of makeup and big earrings. But I think this is more school-specific because in other places, they make fun of girls who waste time with make-up.

howzerdo said...

Could be. I haven't been paying attention to make-up, and I think it is not very popular with the women here, but I'll have to look around and see. Nathan has made me take up her anthropologist's methods!