Magazines / Academics / Being confrontational.

Last night when I passed the Walgreen's here the flashing sign out front said

4 NEW OBAMA
MAGAZINES
NOW IN STOCK

I was realizing today when I was reading a ton of related books for my qualifying exams that you think that reading a ton of primary sources would make academics original, but instead they just parrot each other endlessly, repeating the most correct formulas and descriptions that other people have come up with, and knowing an area well is to be able to pick those phrases out.

Today I pissed off another weird library user -- or, to be more accurate, reading room user. In the one undergrad social club building on campus, there's this lovely first floor room with big windows that's a quiet study room where you can hear a pin drop, and a lot of grad students go there, since even the undergrads are respectful of the quiet there and don't horse around or answer their cellphones or bullshit like that.

But, since I've started going there the past couple weeks, I've discovered there's this nicely-dressed mid-20s Asian guy with a bowl haircut and a bookstand who comes in during the afternoons and sits in a corner, and he reads articles out loud for hours on end so, if he's on the louder side, you can hear him enunciating Kant from like 25 feet across the room. The first time I ever saw him doing that, I asked this (white) undergrad girl at the table where I was working what was up with that, and she was like, "I have no idea, but he sure comes in here a lot."

So, today I was in there studying, and this Asian dude comes in -- his eyes aren't straight, by the way -- and he starts reading out loud, so I walked across the room and asked him if he could either read silently or go upstairs to the undergrad coffee shop/lounge area or to the bagel place to study, since he was disturbing people who wanted to study in silence.

"I will read more quietly," he was like, and he began glaring at me.

"That's very inconsiderate to other patrons," I was like, "People come here since it's a very quiet room."

"It wasn't quiet this summer!", he was like, and then, "I will read more quietly," and as I backed off, this Asian undergrad girl mouthed "thank you" at me, and a couple other people gave me a thumbs up.

Like ten or twelve minutes later, though, this dude started reading very loudly again so I could hear him on the other side of the room, so I looked up and happened to catch the eyes of two white girls on a couch near me (one in a med school sweatshirt) and they just shrugged and made a face like he was crazy, but since I was a bit pissed, I took my book -- Peter Brown's "Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity", which I had read through and was now taking notes on -- and went over, pulled out the chair next to this dude, and began reading outloud in between taking my notes.

I did this for like ten minutes or so, and he would raise his voice to counter mine, and the funny part was that like twice in my book Peter Brown quotes a French scholar without translation and I happened to hit those parts, so I actually had not only to read out loud, but also to read French out loud, and fake a French accent.

Then, I got tired with that and went to sit down, and as I was going to my table the girl in the med school sweatshirt made this thankful applause motion to me as I went by.

This jackass kept on reading, though, but more quietly, so I was able to get my work done, though like a half hour later when the med school sweatshirt girl left, she dropped a note on his table, I take it, because the guy picked it up, and raised his voice and read it out loud for the entire room to hear, and it was something to the effect that she thought his behavior was inappropriate since this is the quietest place to study on campus, even quieter than the main library and the undergrad library and the science library, and he's inconsiderately ruining it for the rest of everyone.

This dude then threw the letter down on the table, and was like, "And what is this? I have a cousin who received a doctorate in Classics from Marquette University. I have another cousin who received a law degree from American University. What would he say to this note?", and other crazy shit like that.

Like five minutes later, I was done reading and note-taking, so I left, and that dude was still there.

On the way to the gym, I ran into this one undergrad I know from circ, this half Puerto-Rican guy who's a hulking punk kid with a big bushy black beard and who often carries a skateboard.

"What's up?", I was like.

"Just walking around campus, dude" he said.

"Oh, are you stoned?", I was like.

"Not right now," he was like.

I then told him about my confrontation, which he thought was awesome. "You totally were marking your territory!", he was like, and he said that he was going to take his Hittite there sometime and read it out loud as he did his translation.

He then was like, too, "How is Viriginia Tech like the North Pole?", and when I didn't know, he was like, "They're both minus thirty-two degrees," which took me a minute to get.