Random Ranting: Trying to find a place to read at school is hard!
Why is it so hard to find a good spot to read?
My current school schedule has me on campus all day Monday and Wednesday, with three long breaks. Two are for one hour, and the last one is two and a half hours long. So ever since the first day of classes, I have been on a quest to find a nice place on campus to read.
Since I live in California, the weather is usually gorgeous, and I try to read outside when I can. The main quad of the campus and the cafeteria are off-limits because they are just far too noisy. There are benches scattered all over the school, but during peak hours (10 am - 3 pm) it’s nearly impossible to find any empty one to sit on. I guess I could share a bench with someone - they’re pretty wide - but I always think it would be awkward, like I’m intruding on *their* private space.
The library would seem to be the obvious solution. But my college library was planned to minimize student time inside it, I think, because the chairs are horribly uncomfortable and the temperature is slightly warmer than chilly. It’s that disagreeable feeling that makes you pull on a sweater, and then ten minutes you’re too warm so you take it off, and ten minutes later you’re cold so you put it on again. It’s a thoroughly unpleasant place to spend an extended period of time.
Lately I’ve just been going back to my car. There’s a comfort in the privacy of my own little cubicle, isolated from the rest of the campus. But a Honda Civic is small and cramped, and staying hunched in the back seat makes me feel like a fetus all balled up inside Mommy. I want to stretch, and there’s literally nowhere for my arms and legs to go. I end up getting out of the car and walking off cramps anyway.
The other spot I like, but can never seem to snag, is down in the main campus center. There is an overhanging walkway where students eat and hang out, and underneath is a quiet little ledge that you can sit on. The noise from everyone else doesn’t seem to sink down to this ledge, so you can read quite peacefully. The last few weeks, though, there’s someone else occupying it whenever I walk by.