Academic frozen sludge

Six inches. That's about how deep the ice slush was that I stepped into on the way to class. See, Newark has this thing about plowing where, well, they just don't like to do it. When they do, they do an atrocious job. So while walking from the Washington St. light rail station two blocks from campus to the law building, I stepped onto what appeared to be solid, black asphalt that was clear of snow and slush. False. There's that moment when it's just too late to do anything about it where you realize that asphalt isn't shiny. That's when my foot went down into what I had anticipated to be solid ground, but turned out to be several inches of frigid, Newark-infested frozen, slush sludge. Right before my first class of the semester. Joy.

I got to class about two minutes late, as is unavoidable when taking the 12:51 train, and I was the second to last person there. As such, and being a full, required course for PhD students, there really wasn't any room to sit. I ended up with a seat at the very front of our elongated rectangle of a classroom, right next to the professor and hugging the corner so as to be facing perpendicular to him rather than facing the rest of the class. During break, I asked if we could add the two empty, unused tables a few feet away but he declined, reasoning that he liked the "cozy" size and shape of the way things were already situated. I mean, that's great for him, but the person who came in after I did was forced to use his laptop on his lap because there wasn't even any table space left. It's one thing to have a preference but it's another to refuse to acquiesce in the face of functional classroom demands.

Also, he tried to illustrate a clear example of the law, but then couldn't remember if stop signs had six or eight sides.

On top of that, our first paper is due next week despite none of us having the books, all of us finding out what the books were going to be just today, and him not having ordered the books at the campus bookstore. Apparently he thinks that Amazon.com employs magicians now, which may or may not be true.

All in all it was a pleasant class where we learned that the teacher doesn't know what a stop sign looks like, the class is woefully ignorant of consent laws, and almost a third of the class knowingly cheats on their taxes.

I can't wait for more of this awesome doctoral experience.

Location:Newark, homeward bound