Sometimes My Arm Acts Independently of My Brain

I voluntarily participated in class today. I know, I know, what the hell was I thinking? Give me a moment to explain.

First, it is a relatively small class, maybe 18 students. With a class that size, everyone has to talk sometime right? The Prof. does randomly call on students, but lately she has been moving to a more democratic method, such that, you can participate if you want. It is not as though class participation is reflected in the grading, but with a small class, sometimes it is best to answer the questions you know, to preempt being called on for the ones you don’t.

Second, the Prof. asked the question twice. There is nothing I hate more than wasting time. Having to ask a question twice equals wasting my time. I also hate when someone says, “To put it another way . . .” when the first way was perfectly clear. To the Prof.’s credit, I think she was just killing time waiting for someone to figure out the answer, but it really was, at least to me, a relatively simple question.

As a corollary to the second, thirdly, no one else was volunteering. I think I have mentioned this before (am I repeating myself? Who cares, only two people read this, and I hope they don’t mind), but I never raise my hand if someone else wants to chime in. Why should I fill the room with my genius if someone else wants to swamp it with idiocy? Yeah, I know, there is something about talking in class that does something. I am not sure what they are all talking about, I never seem to be able to pay attention to psycho-babble. It’s not that I do not want to be wrong in front of a bunch of people, I have been wrong plenty of times, it’s just that I do not care. I cannot stress that enough. Which leads to . . .

Finally, I had trouble connecting to the internet during class. Thus, I was unable to squander my time away reading stuff about nothing (usually Deadspin, ESPN, or Dan Shanoff, all sports related crap). Had I been connected to the internet, I would not have been paying attention anyway. The Prof. was not talking directly about a case, so I should have zoned out, but with Firefox showing me that annoying “Problem loading page,” “Server not found” page. Fuck that page. I see it way, way too much. Of course, I am now numb to that page, so seeing it in class did not send me into a blind rage. Thusly, I was forced to pay attention in class. In my defense, it was not like I learned anything, after all, I was the only person in the class who knew the answer to her question.