September 30, 2005
He Moves his Hands Like a Prizefighter
School started today. It was..., boring. I have a good teacher for Electromagnetism at the least, but I'm not a big fan of the stuff. My Analog ICs professor isn't even back until next week, so his TA ran lecture today. Fuck if the lecture wasn't reviewing BJTs yet again. Probably the fourth or fifth class I've taken that started out with BJT review.
I'm hoping there will be someone interesting in my Linguistics 1 class tomorrow. I've told a few random people to take it with me, since I'd like to have someone I know in the class to talk to, but..., whatever. I don't think I'm actually going to get into Communications 3 either, so this (Lin 1) will probably be my only non-engineering class this quarter.
First quarter of senior year outlook : bad.
So, on to something else.
As it tends to be with the beginning of a new year, we have a bunch of new bus drivers. With the bus drivers, comes actual checking of IDs when you get on the bus on campus. So, I was in a bad spot when I was dropped off on campus with neither phone nor wallet. Luckily, I knew the driver and she wasn't checking IDs anyway, so I drew the long straw on that one.
Being that it was the 8 PM bus, there weren't a whole lot of people on the bus besides the normal fare of "I don't think enough people can hear what I'm saying on my phone" girl, "I'm cool because I've always got my headphones on" guy, and "oversized guy who sits next to you on the small-ass bus seat despite the fact that there are other seats open" guy.
There was this guy and girl that came on though. They came on talking, but apparently just met or something along those lines since they sat apart from eachother in that awkward "I want to talk to you but don't want to sit next to you because then you might think I like you even though I really do" kinda way. They were talking about the guy having been thiiis close to being a chess master back when he was younger, and other such "get to know" eachother topics. I don't feel bad that I was eavesdropping seeing as how they were seated next to me and I couldn't have ignored them even if I'd tried. They talked for a while longer about other irrelevant things, and I was getting kinda creeped out 'cause the guy kept looking at me and he looked kinda funny. Eventually he said, deliberately so that I could hear I assume, "He's got a sword".
I let him take a look at it, and he asked a few questions about it, asking whether it was Kendo and where I was learning, whether it was a "real sword" or not, things like that. I told him about the class, but it was pretty easy to see he had little interest in the subject, so I gracefully bowed out of the conversation and let him talk to his lady friend.
This was, however, shortlived as the empty space between them that they were talking through was filled by two new patrons of the bus. Truthfully, I felt kinda bad for them, since they quite obviously wanted to get to know eachother better, but was too scared to show the enthusiasm necessary to move through the people and sit next to the other for fear of, um, I'm not entirely sure. People are just scared of stuff sometimes.
I still suffer from this. Fuck if I know why. The result of some sort of under-development of my social psyche or ego or some crap probably. As much as I really don't want to become an adult, I really wish I'd just grow up sometimes.
Anyway, the guy had no backpack, but apparently carried on him a pen and a pad of paper at all times. Just before the girl got off at her stop, he gave her his number and said they ought to hang out sometime, in that ever-so-trying-to-be-casual-but-really-quite-nervous tone of voice. "Oh, thank you", said she in reply, confused, but quite pleased it seemed.
It was a nice moment altogether. I smiled when I saw it happen, and to think about it now still makes me chuckle. I suppose it was the utter lack of pretense on both their parts; the slightly awkward, hesitant, back and forth bantering. Much like two fighters, feints, dodges, you toss something out to see how they react, and draw away so as not to show yourself vulnerable.
It was a tender moment, beautiful in some ways and a reminder that people aren't always so bad. I, well, there's not much else I want to say I suppose.
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