Thursday, October 9

Section is always interesting because it’s so much more casual than lecture. I guess lecture can be perceived as “casual” too given the number of people who sleep, show up in pajamas and surf tmz.com while the professor teaches—but section is different in that the class is smaller, there is actual discussion between students and it takes place around the lunch hour so people eat.

My eyes are always wandering in section because there are so many interesting people, such as Larry: our gay Graduate Student Instructor. Larry received his BA from Yale about 5 years ago, but you’d never guess that he was barely 30 if you noticed his conspicuous scalp not very well by his Trumpish comb-over. Each week Larry exhibits a different style—none concealing his sexuality. The first week of school he wore a rainbow striped sweater, the following week it was a seersucker suit and last week he wore plaid shorts that might have been boxers. He’s flamboyant the way a straight man mimicking a homosexual would act in a comedy routine.

Today my eyes locked onto a young lady who typically doesn’t demand my attention. She has an athletic build—not like a sprinter, but similar to a recently retired rugby player whose career ended due to a knee injury. She wears a lot of spandex and lycra—much to the chagrin of those materials. Even with her risqué outfit, I only noticed her because the guy next to her was beat-boxing just before Larry began his lesson. There was a clump of mustard on her right cheek. I assume that it was from a sandwich or something, but there was so much that I couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone squeezed the tube on her while she was sleeping.