BLOG: Rude classmate provides learning experience

I’m not sure if it’s the letdown of returning to normal life after the holidays or the generally cold and gloomy weather, but the month of January tends to find me at my most cantankerous. Maybe it’s because of this phenomenon that I was particularly put out by something I witnessed in one of my classes last week.

The beauty/curse of a liberal arts education is that you will almost certainly be required to take a class which has no relation to your major or interests whatsoever. I have been guilty of asking, “Why on earth am I forced to suffer through this arbitrary waste of time?” as much as the next person. Unfortunately, this is a question with an unsatisfying answer: “Because somebody with more authority than me says so.” Yet as I’m finishing up one of my more illogical gen-eds this semester, I’ve decided to just put on my big girl panties and endure it, if for no other reason than to keep my GPA intact.
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It’s not like I can do much else.

Like many lower level general classes, this one takes place in one of the larger lecture halls on campus. It was obvious on the first day that a vast majority of the 80-or-so students trudging through the doorway with beleaguered expressions were no more enthused by the subject matter than I was. We were comrades in this, commiserating through blank glances and muttered apologies as we squeezed past each other to find a seat. I climbed to a spot about six rows back from the front — far enough from the professor to avoid undue attention, but close enough to not automatically be written off as a slacker.

Seconds before the lecture began, a perfectly ordinary guy joined his friends in the row in front of me. I happened to notice he was wearing earbuds, like I and plenty of other people do during a trek between classes. The thing that caught my attention, however, was that this guy didn’t turn his iPod off as he sat down and class began. Rather, while the soft-spoken professor was giving his greeting, this piece of work leaned back smugly and turned his music up so loud that people across the room were looking around to see where the noise was coming from. His friends giggled their approval.

A few things ran through my head at that moment. The first was that I wished I’d had a cricket bat to crack on this rude little snot-rag’s head. The second was that I wished college classes wouldn’t take attendance, so chumps like this could go ahead and skip instead of distracting people who actually want to make the most of the chore. The third was, “Wait a minute, why should I care what this creep does?”

It could have been my general distaste for smug and disrespectful people. It also could have been my January-induced distaste for everything. Nonetheless, as I watched Mr. Music Man and his friends mimic someone who asked informed questions from the front row, I came to a realization. I had no more control over taking this class than I had over how these dung beetles behaved. I could only control what I made of the situation, and on that day I hadn’t done anything but let myself be distracted by some kids I didn’t even like.

So today, I went nuts. I sat in the front row for a lecture I didn’t even care to attend, and something magical happened. I was able to pay attention. Not only that, but I was surrounded by note-takers, question-askers and lecture recorders — or, as I like to call them, my people.