Wednesday, April 8

auburn academia

it is my brother now who has the luck to be concurrently enrolled in the local community college as well as the public high school down the street. I accompanied him to campus today for the purpose of acquiring the signature of one important gentleman. meanwhile, brother's classes stretched from 10 am til 2; I didn't mind loitering on campus with my notebooks while he sat through anthropology, history, and pottery.

though I am not and never have been one of its students, I have been here before, back when it was my sister's turn at pottery. on this visit I was struck once again by the stylishness of all the asians. how do these asians get away with being so stylish?

community colleges have this marvelous do-it-yourself feel about them. not being an official student of this moss-covered place, I don't know exactly what makes it different from the mountain-shadowed university where I spent my formal secondary education. it's smaller. it's younger. it's a bit more ragged. it probably doesn't have rich, finicky alumni looking down at it all the time.

but what do I know?

someone is selling spectacularly dyed roses in the student union.
the bulletin boards are slapped all over with handmade ads for last term's textbooks.
a fountain ripples water down the sides of a curvy black monolith.
people are smoking, congregating, teasing, whining.
and I am lounging against a concrete bench, reading the end of Nick Hornby and eavesdropping on conversations that are only half in english.

No comments: