Aisle 27

Aisle 27: The Best Seller/Stationary Asile

So I have decided never to say the phrase, "Can I help you?" while working at the circ. desk, the reserves section yeah, but not at circ. It's just that every time I ask some one that they just stare blankly and thrusts books towards me. What would they like me to do with these books? Check them in, check them out, eat them? It makes so little sense. The only time I get an answer from a patron it's in the form of "Yes" then the thrusting of the books. As if I can read their minds, or would want to if I had the ability, which I don't (by don't I mean don't to both, want to know and be able to).

That's pretty much what I get all day at the library, people thrusting books into my face. No chit chat, they just want their books and not be told they have a $243 library fine for not returning a book. I've tried to get into some form of conversation with a few patrons, a girl checked out a few Ionesco books and I gave a few pointers on some other books that might help. I've asked people what class they're taking that requiers them to check out a book on the sexual ethics of early pagan practices. But all I get are monosylabic responces or "I'm not reading this for fun, it's for a class." My all time favorite comment was from this guy (possibly a jock though I'm not sure and don't want to generalize) who was checking out four or five juvinile books. He flet it was nessecary to let me know he was checking these out for a class and not for personal reasons (couldn't understand what was wrong with that though, I mean Jumaji is a freakin' fantastic read). The patron then went on about how this is the first time he'd ever check out a book from any library since his freshman year in highschool (he was a college junior at this point if memoriy serves), he's justification for this was, "Every thing I've needed to learn I learned on t.v. So why would I need to read, you know?" All I could do was say, "Well what ever works for you, these are due back October 13th." I had to resist the urge to point out how wrong he was and at the same time the urge to laugh my head off.

I'm constantly surprised by the discrepencies in intellect at this school. I know it's a state university but honestly some times I wonder how these people graduated from high school, let alone get into a college. There are some rather smart people here, many of which are not in the honors college. Ah the honors college, that's something that disturbs me. First off let me just say that I truely believe in the "Imposter" syndrome (the idea that you feel that you aren't really worthy of being in the position you are in, ie I'm in the honors college yet I don't think I'm smart enough), I never would consider myself honors college material, despite the fact that I have made it through several honors, or higher level courses through out college and high school. I've always told people in the honors college that I'm possibly one of the less honorsie students, and I feel a bit of a phoney when I have to tell people not in the program that I'm part of it. Then I look at the people who are actually in the program. Now, again, many of them are indeed smart, and I am in awe of them, but there are quite a decent amount of people I have no clue as to how the heck they managed to get into this program. I keep on comparing the new students to those in my own class when we were at their level and I'm still shocked. They all have big sticks up their asses. Yes we complained about the work, being in honors ment doing about 20 pages of writing each week for each class, as well as reading over 100 pages a night for each class. For a freshman that's a heavy work load, but one does get use to it. And we would help those who needed help, and even lent a hand to the new people. I don't see that any more. I just see people who have an elitest demener to themselves. So how do I counteract this? I put them in their place, of course. I'm in a class, for example, about science writing and several students are complaining that the professor is making us write to familiar and when they get to writing their thesis they won't be able to keep a traditionally scholar like tone to their papers. I turned to the girl who was saying this and said, well that's the joy of writing a thesis. It's your topic and your project. You write however you want to write, and if you can make the thesis enjoyable to read by adding a touch of humanity to it then so much the better. Because really who wants to read sixty pages of description on the origin of the fork? I'd at least like to hear some amusing anecdotes on how the fork eventually evolved into the spork.

This thesis project is an UNDERGRADUATE thesis project, not a graduate one. And since it is such I feel we should be able to explore our topics in what ever fashion we would like. We have plenty of time in grad school to turn fully academic, why not get a chance with it now? Personally my thesis has the potential to be a bit more humorous than I'm letting it be, but I'm still letting some entertaining bits flow through.