They don't care what you know until they know that you care.
Today I did the nerdiest thing I’ve ever done, not counting the time I read a history of the Oxford English Dictionary for fun. Or the day I wrote a letter to my brother in the Standard Galactic Alphabet. Or the time I made my own Monopoly board, personalized to my friends. Or the summer that my brother and I taught ourselves Tengwar, the writing system for Quenya, the language of the elves…
Room 2242 Kirkhof is not unlike a dungeon, despite the skylights and the unlocked door through which one can easily return to the normal world. I think the dark brick walls that extend up three times the length and four times the width of the tiny floor really set the tone. Today from 5:30 to 7:00 this room was filled with seven white kids intent on gaining +35 nerd points… and a cheerfully obliging professor. As the professor, one of my very favorites, described the notion of “cases” and the thorn, ash, and eth, five of the students pored over their “Introduction to Old English” texts and the other two clutched their volumes of “Old Norse Grammar.” We were very pleased.
Nerd Hour was not my only reason for returning to GV’s Allendale campus. After a vile introductory seminar that I attended downtown, I had yet another education class that made my blood boil. I dislike my classes and my classwork and my classmates. They are boring and they are a waste of time and they are depressingly excitable. And anxious. When our seminar leader reminded us that students prefer teachers who are warm and enthusiastic, my neighbor drew an asterisk on her paper. “Warm and enthusiastic,” she wrote carefully.
Allendale campus is also home to the biology lab, where I was reunited with Jeremy and Jean. They were kind of like Bizarro World Jeremy and Jean, the kind who wear clothes that I don’t recognize. The kind who have gotten haircuts and are not deathly tired and tundra-y. I was happy to see them. We had four whole days to catch up on! Bob was there, too, naturally, so we had a debriefing. I look forward to having time every week to be in this environment.
Being on campus was strange, however. I rode the bus. I saw the freshmen. When I see freshmen walking around holding hands I always wonder if they are the kind who went to college with their high school sweetheart or the kind who managed to pair themselves off during orientation week and the first 48 hours of classes.
Either way I think they’re idiots.