Today I had tests in both of the classes I am taking at UNC. Did I mention that I am going back to school and taking “prerequisites?” Aside from being a nifty way to avoid once again repaying student loans, I might actually end up with a skill that is actually marketable and provides me with more than great party conversation material for a fraction of the cost. And unless the party is populated with world-travelling, highly educated artistic types with an interest in theology and in particular Indian and eastern religions and the nature of consciousness (you can add alternative music, performance art, theatre, lifestyles, and anything obscure and patrician to the list) Since I currently live in Cary North Carolina, there are rare and few opportunities to practice these party skills, unfortunately. The psychology class is over 300 students and the bulk of them are freshmen. Most classes begin with perky sorority spokesgirls announcing rush dances, or the crew teams coxswain recruiting team members by inviting them to a social. My favorite was the “business” fraternity, for students who think they may be going on to the UNC school of business. They were having a rush party and I imagined that this must involve sales pressure tactics and work groups with teambuilding excercizes so I figured that I would not be going to that one. When I was in college, I could not have been less intertested in any of those three options except for maybe crew, because that involved the annual Head of the Charles Regatta, and that involved copious drinking. And that involved watching crew. (A distinct but not important difference from actually doing the rowing. Both could be potentially satisfying.) But it wasn’t all about drinking. Sometimes it was about getting very stoned. I recently shared with a friend about taking bong hits at 7:45 in the morning in order to prepare for “Vectors and Polar Coordinates” –a math class in which I very likely received an A. But that was high school. Things were different in college. The regular psychology lecture guy was sick, so they asked the TA to give the lecture. The TA is probably in his late twenties and he looks and dresses like a guy who spends a lot of time at sports bars. He had to finish the lecture series on personality, and the last bit that was yet to be covered was the bit on Freud’s psychosexual development. Even though his ridiculous, pedestrian lecture seemed more like a Saturday Night Live skit than an academic presentation, I have to say that I had toward sympathy for this poor guy for his having to stand up in front of 300 mostly 18 year olds and explain penis envy with a straight face.