Tuesday, October 09, 2007

-It's only Tuesday and I am truly exhausted. I drank a Starbucks coffee before bed last night so I could stay awake to study. I ended up staying up until 1 a.m. and waking up before 6 a.m. You really don't want to see me when I have not had enough sleep. It has not been a good day.

-Guess what Snow White is called in Spanish? Blanca Nieves. I never knew that. I think it sounds prettier, since Blanca is an actual name in Spanish.

-I was at the library yesterday afternoon when some library workers started going around and changing out all the chairs from under the students in the computer lab. Why they chose the middle of the day to start this task instead of waiting until the computer area was less full, I don't know.

The old chairs were these dark, sturdy wooden chairs with plump cushioning. They were quite pretty as they matched the wood of the tables in the library. The new ones were made of thin black metal tubing and had a thin layer of cushioning. So there was this big commotion in the library as the workers brought out these chairs and one by one, asked the students to exchange their chairs. "Can I have this chair?" a girl asked me in accented English. I was like, whatever, just let me finish reading this journal article. So I surrendered the old chair and sat in the new one. It was lighter, I guess. The cushioning was red with black squares. The seat was a little higher up. Truth be told, I liked the old one, somehow it felt more solid, but this one was fine.

The library workers had to ask probably over a hundred people to surrender their chairs, and all of them did so, however grudgingly. But this one guy just said no. "No, I'd rather keep this chair," he said, even as every single person around him traded.
They asked him again. "No, I like this one. It's more comfortable."
So one of the workers, probably a work-study student, as he didn't look older than his early 20s, just left the chair there next to him.
The workers started to point. "What about that guy?"
"He didn't want to trade. Said that chair was more comfortable."
"Oh."
But somehow this task of chair-trading was so urgent that they ended up asking him a third time. A discussion took place, which I didn't hear, and this time he finally gave in. But I kind of admire that kid for not giving in right away. He was right--that chair was more comfortable. In college you're supposed to be taught to resist, right? Why surrender a comfortable chair that is serving you well as you surf the web or write your paper? Maybe this is a silly story, but I suppose the moral is that students really should stand up for their rights more often, even if it is only for the right to a cushiony chair.

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