Guy Talk

By the time it is all said and done my parents will have spentclose to $12.4 million putting me through school. The number is arough estimate I calculated in my head. I just took the square rootof the Latin derivative and added the molecular combustionmultiplied the by the number of years I went to school while I wasstill a bed wetter, and that was the answer.

So it makes me wonder what have I learned for such a cost?

From pre-school all the way through high school I learned manyof the basic facts of life.

I still have truble spelling. I did learn in math that if Natehas three apples and Amy takes two of them, Nate should slap her inthe face and get his apples back. In biology (or was it chemistry… actually it could have been on Nickelodeon), I learned that ifyou eat pop rocks and coke, your stomach will blow up. In history Ifound out that Napoleon was a midget that enjoyed touching himselfand in WWII he got his butt kicked by Stone Wall Jackson. StupidFrenchman.

Then came college. The groundwork for creating high levels ofintela… inteal … smarts. Come on. Beer, parties, girls in shortskirts, co-ed sleepovers, dorms, girls in short skirts – howcould I not learn.

I quickly found out that none of my professors knew there areother classes you can take in college besides the one they teach.Which explains why I can take a MWF class and have two papers dueat the end of the week, 17 chapters to read in six textbooks, whileattending all eight of the three-hour study sessions to prepare forthe pop-quiz that begins each lecture.

It became apparent that as people get older and lose more hair,they become more intelligent. Which must be why Mr. Clean neverthought to try Rogaine. That is why professors that dawn thecomb-over look are really just attempting to mask their truegenius.

I have been impressed with many professors willingness to helpstudents learn. In case I was confused on how the lecture on the”direct impact of the vacuum cleaner to an inter-racialcouple dating in the 40s” related to my life, many professorswill take time to explain. Just stop by their office on Tuesday orThursday. You must go between 12:08 and 12:17 p.m. on the thirdTuesday of the month. Unless the date is even then you must stop byon the fourth Thursday between 9:07 and 9:09 a.m. However, to makethis time slot, you must make an official certified reservationthree weeks prior to enrolling in the professor’s class.

The registration process is about as easy as finding a word thatrhymes with month.

Anyone who has received a master’s degree from Harvardmight be able to figure out how to drop a class. If you can obtaina signature from your dean your advisor can hack into the databaseand enroll you in a class that has already been filled up. Parkingtickets are smart enough to tell the computer not to let you enrolluntil they have been paid. The do-it-yourself approach has reallycaught on. Which is why last week, six students sat in my Spanishclass for 45 minutes until one of them asked me if the professorwas going to teach the entire American history lesson in a foreignlanguage. Can someone tell me what gets closed more often forrepairs, the boulevard or access?

At least the parking situation has been solved. A blue passallows you to park by the dorms. A green pass allows you to park onthe right hand side of the second floor of the parking garage. Ared pass allows you to park by Ford Stadium every day except forgameday, which is when you actually need to park there. A blackpass allows you to park on the east side of campus only in theafternoon. A yellow pass lets you park your car on top of anothercar as long as it has the same color pass. The purple pass withorange dots and grey stripes doesn’t even let you park oncampus, it just gives you the right to go buy one of the othercolored passes.

Maybe college all done has is confuse me more important thethings in life. Maybe it just plain sucks, but I have loved everyminute of it and will take with me every important lesson Ilearned.

Please send your thoughts, questions or concerns to Guy [email protected] or reach me on my cell at 911-584-4650.