For many people in the collegiate world, Thursday is really just an extension of the weekend. I can name countless friends whose freedom begins when their last class gets out somewhere around 12:15. One of the infinite perks of being a Biomedical Engineering major happens to be the fact that our department has spared us the agony of Friday class (believe me, they use the rest of the week to their full advantage), but unfortunately, Thursday has become the bane of my existence. Leaving my house around 7:30 every morning and usually returning around 6:30 or 7pm leads to some major fatigue and a little delirium. My 11am materials science class always gets the ball rolling as far as immaturity goes. My professor is a pretty stoic, but really interesting guy who spent a good part of his life doing Naval Ship R&D. As someone who finds most forms of transportation very cool, I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of his flying and sailing adventures. Additionally as the only girl in the class, I get a serious kick out of all of the bros discussing the merits of certain materials and arguing whether or not a particular item will implode. Nevertheless, corrosion (yes, this is a class about how to prevent things from falling apart), has a vast number of really good "that's what she said" opportunities. The problem is that no one else really picks up on them (the lack of sociability of engineers does, in fact, hold some water). I'll spare you the specifics, but when you're discussing various holes in materials, there are some verbal mistakes that are just too good. As my friend Kiki says, the word "motorboating" is just always funny. After spending the class unsuccessfully trying to stifle my laughter, I resigned the rest of my afternoon to a two and a half hour Architecture seminar. Typically, I sit on the far side of the room, but last Thursday I decided to switch it up and put my stuff down next to a particularly fratty kid wearing (shocker) a Patagonia fleece, camouflage hat, and boat shoes. As you may have been able to garner from my earlier discussion, I have a history of laughing uncontrollably. I used to be embarrassed by it, largely because there are a lot of times (class, church, operation of motor vehicles, etc) when completely out of control laughter is not appropriate. Usually, something mildly funny sparks some kind of subtle laughter, which slowly progresses as I continue to laugh at whatever is going on in my head (I'm not a freak, I know you've all experienced this). There are certain people whose texts I'll never read in class solely to avoid cracking up. Anyway, one glance at this kid's laptop screen and I knew it was a lost cause. After watching him peruse his Twitter page briefly, he switched over to Youtube. His first video of choice? "30-year-old trainer attacked by Orca whale." Then using the"related videos" link to the right, he explored additional animal encounters (squirrel, flamingo, and bear) before heading on to Facebook to his virtual farm and aquarium. I think he realized that I was cracking up at his interweb activity about 2 hours into class, and began actually taking some notes. The sideways glares I got from my professor as I tried to contain my hysterics via my coat sleeve were probably well-deserved but hey, it wasn't totally my fault. Moral of the story? Sometimes acting your shoe size, not your age, isn't such a bad idea.
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