This Tuesday began the same way it always does – a hard time waking up for a 9:30 A.M. class with a room full of tired college students who got too little sleep. I tried my best to stay attentive so that I didn’t end up with yet another page of incomprehensible notes slurred together. Everything was going along just like any other day – that is, until I went half-deaf.
You see, the one girl in the class who obviously overdosed on coffee that morning screamed a rather shrill shriek right into my left ear. “What on earth would make a girl randomly scream at the top of her lungs in the middle of class?” you may ask? Well, certainly someone must have dropped dead. Or perhaps she lost her vision for a minute (just as I moments later partially lost my hearing), and in a moment of complete panic, she screamed frantically. Or, of course, it could just be former President George W. Bush.
As I’m sure every student on campus is now aware, former President Bush has spent the last several days visiting the SMU campus. Now, all politics aside, I was starting to think that the excitement was getting to be too much, and Tuesday morning’s happenings just confirmed my thoughts. Within a matter of seconds, my class had gone from tired, quiet students to a screaming mess of teenagers.
The class was wild with excitement – most jumped out of their seats to stand next to the window in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the former president. Others simply left. I was shocked and in disbelief – I know that college is nothing like high school, but to leave in the middle of a professor’s lecture (the review before an exam, no less) seemed disrespectful beyond belief.
Before I knew it, half of my class was outside of the Fondren Science building in an effort to shake our former president’s hand. I, along with a few frustrated souls also trying to get an education in exchange for the thousands of dollars we pay SMU, refused to leave my seat. One girl even squealed to her friend as they left the room, “Maybe we’ll at least get to breathe the same air!” Though my lips allowed a few exasperated sighs to escape after I realized the review session for my Thursday exam had prematurely ended, I tried my best not to let my disappointment get the best of me.
My heart sank, however, as I realized what had just happened; my professor had given the members of the class who just couldn’t contain their enthusiasm an ultimatum – either stay and get a proper education, or go and gawk at the former president. I was saddened to see over half of my class walk out. Is that the price we are paying to see celebrities, now? An education – a future?
I will admit that as I left my class at exactly 10:50 A.M., I chuckled to see that Bush was still standing in the grass with a large group of awe-struck students surrounding him. The commotion caused in class by the bunch of young adults was completely and absolutely unnecessary – and for what? To breathe the same air as our former president? My professor left the room with a look of sorrow upon her face and as I walked out alongside her, she mumbled to me, “You would think he would try not to disrupt classes.”
There’s something I hadn’t altogether thought about enough. How long would this craze last? While the celebrity presence was indeed a bit of a thrill at first, I was already prepared to get back to the typical college life that did not revolve around whether or not someone got the chance to shake former President Bush’s hand.
Soon, the former president’s company among us will become old news and life will return to normal. Until then, for those who feed off such a life, better run for the next spotting before all that’s left to be said is, “Boys and girls, Bush has left the building.”
Nureen Gulamali is a freshman advertising and sociology double major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
