Lower Learning

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...Being a graduate student allows one to make a few observations of the up-and-coming undergraduates who happen to infest the school. Please allow me to address these nuisances.

...If you’re an undergraduate who is in your university’s library “doing work,” don’t sit around and talk about your social lives, your cell phone plan, or your silly little car as if the library is the local watering hole. In case you haven’t heard, a library is a place for quiet. Some of us are trying to study and do research for our classes because we actually give a damn about our grades. Go to the cafeteria.

...Secondly, don’t talk about nonsense during class while the professor is giving his/her lecture. College is not high school, and some of us don’t care about your social lives, your cell phone plan, your silly little car, your favorite brand of bottled water, how hot the quarterback is, or where you are burned because you spent too much time in the tanning booth. Besides, ultraviolet radiation causes cancer; go to the library instead and read a book.

...Speaking of silly little cars, you’re not special because your spoiler, exhaust system, and paint scheme each cost more than your entire car did when you originally purchased it. They’re still Neons, Mitsubishis, and Civics, and you can’t polish a turd no matter how hard that you try. Neither ground effects nor European-styled tail lights will help. Hopefully your Abercrombie & Fitch- and Hollister-mobiles will soon become passé, but if you want to drive a real car, buy a muscle car from the late-1960s. “Performance” means having horses under your hood—not rice paddies.

...Finally, for all drivers, remember this: If you’re in a long line of cars going slowly up or down a winding hill due to an overweight truck at the head of the line, it’s not going to do any good to ride the bumper of the car in front of you. The drivers can’t go any faster because there is a line in front of them. Use applied physics and a little common sense and come to that conclusion.