Yawn.

I like to consider myself a thoughtful college student. Not that I've never been tardy, and yes, my phone has gone off ONCE before, but I never do these things intentionally. I'm generally on time and pay attention. If I do glance at my phone, I try to be discreet, and I never just completely ignore classroom etiquette to eat, do unrelated homework or read materials not associated with the class I'm in (of course, smaller, informal-like classrooms are often a different story). So when I see people getting away with things like...

1) Playing games in class. There's this one guy who sits diagonally from me in my political science who never brings a notebook or pencil and is constantly playing Tetris on his iPod Touch. ... Why even come?

2) People who come to class LATE on exam days and jiggle the door handle or knock when they've been locked out. Seriously?

3) People who are just habitually late.

4) People who can't accomplish the simple task of silencing their phones.

... I sometimes feel a little frustrated. I don't know how most professors stand it, honestly. But was this Cornell professor did completely necessary?

Yawns happen. I doubt it was voluntary. The volume of said yawn probably could have been controlled better, but I doubt the student was actively try to disrespect the professor. Just reading the word yawn or thinking about the word yawn can spur your mouth into action. Didn't you just yawn reading that? And I bet you weren't even sleepy.

I used to overlook Veteran's Day. If it didn't get me out of school, then it ranked dangerously low as a priority. I didn't beg my parents to put out the American flag, hug my relatives for their services to the country or even verbally acknowledge the day. It just was.

Then, of course, you lose people, and you start to think, start to look beyond the shallow confines of your own little world. Veterans Day hit me hard this year.

Both my grandfather and his brother served in World War II, and both came back different people. My grandfather never talked about the war, what he'd seen or what he did. It was a topic that we - the grandchildren - respectfully avoided, though we were always itching to know the details. My Great-Uncle Oz, however, loved to rehash his glory days. He killed for his country, and he was proud to tell anyone while showing off his spoils from war (an old German Luger and a Hitler Youth Knife, both of which we still have).

I used to resent how quiet my grandfather was about the whole thing. Partly because of how exclusive the knowledge was (I'll still never know; my grandmother has aggressive dementia and mostly just talks to herself, and my mom and uncles don't know much about what happened either) and also because I felt like we were too close to each other to keep secrets.

Now that he's gone (he fought hard, but the cancer fought harder), I realize all the things he did share with me have been taken for granted. There are so many things that he taught and told me, things I didn't think about at the time because I was just a selfish little kid. And I wonder if he were here now, would be be proud of the person I've become?

I love and miss you, Glenwood Adams. 

Trying to go to my happy place right now.

I'm reserving this blog space for a personal rant. One of the few things I liked about ULM was the arrangement of the campus: it was more compact, and parking was more accommodating. Tech's campus is spread out, and while the parking isn't great, it's adequate. Still, many people complain about the parking, and with good reason.

It's not that there aren't enough spaces. It's just that, for some reason, students like to park in ways that leave enough space between cars to fit another car, but not enough space to maneuver into the empty spot successfully. I can not tell you how many times I've come to school, seen a sliver of room, and then tried to wiggle my car into place. After a few minutes, I usually give up. Sad thing is, I drive a pretty small car - 2006 Toyota Corolla, specifically. Even my carpool buddy has issues trying to snag these spots, and she drives an even smaller Mazda Protege.

It's really - excuse the language - really fucking annoying. I wish I would've thought to take pictures, though I can imagine anyone else reading this blog that's a student at Tech knows exactly what I'm talking about. It's not enough that I leave for class an hour early, but then I have to creep and stalk around the parking lot like a lion looking for some wounded gazelle to pounce on. I don't have the patience. I waste it on more important things: like waiting on tech support over the phone, and sitting in the bank drive through and suffering through back-to-back episodes of NCIS to get to Law & Order.

So please, quit parking like an asshole. It really drives me crazy.