First Week of School Adventures

I just checked in with Abby to see how her new semester is going. She had some funny stories to share.


Did you know that the notebook paper you buy from Walmart is not 8 1/2 X 11 inches? It is 8 X 10 1/2 inches. Abby knows this now because her math teacher is very particular about paper size and insisted that everyone use standard-size paper. Abby went home and measured hers. It was too small, as was all the lined paper in their apartment. She ended up recopying her homework onto printer paper. The next day she asked her professor if they even make 8 1/2 X 11 paper. He said, "You must shop at Walmart." Either the guy is a precise mathematician or he has OCD.


The other day Abby got in the elevator in a building on campus. There was already someone in there. As it happened, he was walking home and lived in the same direction as Abby so they talked all the way home. When they got to the corner where she had to turn he said, "It was nice meeting you, Abby. I just got off my mission so I think I need your phone number." As Abby told me, "There isn't anything you can say to that so I gave it to him." He said, "I'm calling your number right now," and she watched him dial. Her phone was in her back back so she didn't hear or feel it vibrate, but when she got home there wasn't a missed call. She doesn't know if he misdialed or if she accidentally gave him the wrong number, but she feels bad about it, even if it doesn't really matter if he calls or not.


Abby is taking a Comparative Literature class. Strangely, Peter and Amy, her aunt and uncle who graduated in the early 90's, both took the same class from the same professor. Abby suspects he hasn't changed the syllabus or his lectures since then. He still uses an overhead projector for his lectures instead of PowerPoint. Anyway, she talked to several people who have had him and they basically all told her that grading is very arbitrary. She will fail all the tests and they aren't necessarily on the books they read. Sometimes the tests include things they didn't talk about, but he thinks they should know. In spite of that lots of people still get A's, including a girl who scored 18% on the final exam. They told her he seems to grade on how much you participate in class and if he likes you. Abby is not a brown-noser, but she has already decided that her first order of business is to drop in during office hours and have a conversation with him about the book they are currently reading . She isn't sure what to think, but lots of people in the class had him last semester and chose to take a class from him again so people apparently like him.


Abby has mapped out the rest of her college semesters and has happily figured out that she can major in psychology, minor in English, math and women's studies, go to Jerusalem for a semester and still graduate in 4 years.