Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Attack of the cavy pheromones

I find it astounding that even during my third year of living on campus I still find new and interesting things that irk me.
1. Are we all adults here? I have seen numerous students commuting to and from classes on those scooters that were all the rage when we were in middle school (and of course were associated with various safety defects), skateboards, and those tennis shoes with built-in skates in the heels.
2. There is a section in the campus newspaper entitled "Bad Dawgs." For the most part, this deals with traffic violations and the antics of drunks. But on occasion there will be a report along the lines of "student fell in residence hall." It's called "Bad Dawgs," not "Notably Clumsy Dawgs."
3. I'm currently enrolled in a basic computer applications class, as a requirement for the College of Arts and Sciences. No big deal, it's supposed to be the easiest computer course offered on campus. But every day there will be half a dozen or so students who interrupt the lecture because "mine doesn't look like that" due to their inability to follow directions. No constructive questions have been posed to date. And although I'm not completely computer-illiterate, it's still surprising that I am at the head of the class. Up 'til now, I've had to engage in epic battles with Word's autoformatting to get my papers to conform to the proper style.
4. Sunday night the housing department held a "mandatory" meeting to discuss new security policies in the residence halls. For the most part, the "new" policies are very similar to old policies that were abandoned last year for whatever reason. However, some of the students at the meeting were so outraged at the check-in and visitation policies that they hacked into some IT resources and sent out a mass e-mail from the "Center for Chaos" urging students to rebel when voting for visitation hours. A Facebook group was also founded in reaction to the changing policies, and at last count, the vast majority of its members are freshmen and sophomores.
So this mini-rant is twofold. I had to tramp through the rain for a "mandatory" meeting when the details would later be e-mailed to on-campus residents, and underclassmen committing borderline criminal activity and overzealously applying methods similar to what they probably just learned in history so we don't have to deal with the inconveniences of check-ins. Not that I'm completely in favor of all aspects of the new policy - for instance, during move-in days female residents are highly dependent on help from male friends, relatives, and boyfriends to help move heavy boxes, TVs, etc., and under the new policy they cannot enter or exit through the side doors (closer to the parking lot), but must only enter/exit through the main lobby, even after they have been properly checked in.

Enough of that. For an amusing tidbit, an explanation behind today's title:
I think the guinea pig is in heat. And it's attracted to Dennis's left foot, but only if he's wearing a sock.