Joel

In my freshman year of college, I took an intro geology class with Dr. Reed Wicander.  It was the start of many long hours and thoughts in that classroom and the hallway of that building.  I sat in the second row.  Students are more likely to get A's if they sit up front, but I never sit in the front row b/c teachers unconsciously do weird stuff sometimes in class.  It's better to place a little distance between you and them.

I had a professor, Dr. J, who would get white spittle built up in the corners of his mouth when he talked and when he got passionate and started calling us his little birds or yelling about how Mother Nature is a whore, he would spit it out onto the first row.  Sometimes teachers will lean against the desk as they talk or put one leg up on the desk, and then their crotch is RIGHT THERE and you spend the entire time focusing on not looking and not thinking about it.  And that's why I choose the second row.

I sat next to a guy  named Joel, and he was my partner for the lab part of class.  He was a little nerdy and weird looking, and that made me nervous because I didn't know how to act around him.  But he did his work, was smart, and was overall a good partner, so I didn't care, and in the end stopped being nervous.

Every day I would come in, get out my three ring binder for notes, my pencil, and my pen.  I would spend some time arranging them perfectly in front of me (it was one long table that everyone sat at, not individual desks), then I would open the binder up to the first page.  It was the schedule of what we would be doing for the semester in that class.  I would cross the date for the last time we had class.  At the bottom was the words:

Final Exam

Dec 10

I would draw a box around it or add stars and exclaim to Joel that Dec 10 was my birthday!  I'm pretty sure I told him it was my birthday at least once a week for the entire semester.

Then one day it was Dec 10 and it was my birthday and we had sat down to take the exam.  Joel handed me a sparkly cardboard crown thing, and was like "Happy Birthday!"  Isn't that the nicest thing ever!!!?!?!  I really wasn't expecting it at all.    And it's one of my more favorite memories to think about.

It's also why birthday's are really important to me.  It's a special day and it should be recognized by everyone.  Not my birthday! But everyone's birthday!  Even if you don't know someone well, if you remember their birthday or are nice to them on their birthday, it means a lot.