Convenience and Campus Confusion

Convenience
I have some issues with convenience items. For instance: the peanut-butter-and-jelly-in-one-jar products. If you are so lazy that you can't take the time and effort to open two jars instead of just one, you don't deserve to eat a sandwich. The extra ten seconds required to open the second jar and spread the second topping really aren't going to make a difference to your life in the long run. And besides, the separate products taste SO much better than the combination. Also, have you ever noticed that when you're using those motion-sensing, self-flushing public toilets, they always seem to flush while you're sitting on the toilet, but never seem to want to flush when you're finished and ready to leave. You get a swirly, but when you really want your mess to disappear, it won't go away. And you feel guilty leaving it, but there really isn't another way to flush, so you do a funny little dance in the stall, waving your arms, stepping to either side of the space, just to try to make it flush. Not fun.

Rec Center
Our school rec. center has just been renovated, so now there are several new features. I know that we needed more space, and it will be a great thing to have more excercise machines, weight rooms, and workout studios, but some of the new features are a bit amusing. For instance, the new treadmills have DVD players in them. This presents, for me, a great opportunity. I'm tempted to take a movie over on a Friday night and just watch the movie while I walk. I mean, what a great workout I could get if I just took over one of my favorite 1.5 hour films or, better yet, my favorite Jane Austen 6-hour mini-series and walked while I watched. But then what happens if the person next to you is watching a bloody slasher film or, worse, a porn? You've already chosen your machine and then there's this creepy person next to you watching something that you wouldn't watch if you were being paid! What's the proper etiquette on that? Do you say something about their viewing choice offending you, or do you just switch machines? And what if there are no other open machines? Truly a difficult dilemma. The thing that has most of the students excited about the new rec center, though, is the additions (yet to be completed) of a "lazy river" and a juice bar. This is a roundabout waterway with a current, making it possible to grab an inner-tube and float around in circles for a little while. So, in theory, you could say you were going to the rec. center, giving the assumption that you're going to work out, then go float around the lazy river for a while, drink a juice, and come back, having only really exercised on the walks to and from. Talk about a fun "work out".

Classes
Now, on to the subject you've all been waiting for, my new classes. (Yes, I know you don't care, but I'm going to ramble anyway.) I'm taking two religious studies classes, which are similar in subject and are held in adjacent rooms on different days. I'm also taking a history class and a sociology class, both of which are cross-listed with women's and gender studies, and which take place in the same room on different days. This combination leads me to the unfortunate predicament of never knowing quite what class I'm in. I go to similar rooms for similar subjects every day and I'm already getting mixed up as to which class is which and what homework belongs to what professor. On top of that, I keep forgetting which day it is and, consequently, what time to go to these classes. Fortunately, the subject matter is so good that it's worth these minor confusions. Another of my classes, a sociology class, has the worst logistical setup that I've ever heard of. It's a writing intensive class with two lectures and a discussion every week, but the discussion contains all of the same people as the lecture and immediately follows the lecture except in a smaller room. This results in every person from the lecture merely getting up and walking upstairs and cramming into a smaller space in order to listen to the same professor continue with the same diatribe. It's a truly stupid idea. My last class is an honors class about the criminal justice system called "(In)Famous Trials". This one looks like a lot of fun, except for the intense amount of reading. The cool thing about this reading, though, is that it involves legal jargon and I get to use words like "thereto" and "hereby" with good reason. It's exciting. All in all, aside from the logistical confusions, it looks like it's going to be a good semester.