Life Lessons

Today's entry is going to be directed to my younger readers. I've learned a lot of things in college. A lot of important life lessons that I could only learn through experience because no one told me what to be expecting or how to handle certain situations. So I'm going to document some of the learning experiences that I've had over the past couple of weeks. Hopefully y'all will heed my advice and learn from my mistakes. But I know some of you out there are stubborn and will ignore these warnings and go out there and have to learn on your own, through your own experiences and mistakes. I wish I could prevent you from doing so, but all I can say is good luck...

We'll start in my Organizational Behavior class a couple of weeks ago. I always like to buy used books, not only because of the price difference, but also the previous owner highlights all the important things. Well this book was not only highlighted, but it had notes written out in the margin. The notes aided me in studying, the highlighting aided me in reading. Obviously with all these mark-ups in the book, the previous owner had to be brilliant! I was lucky to have this book. As my prof lectured, I was following along in the text, noting the highlighting and helpful notes. The prof then shifted class from lecture towards more of a discussion. To begin, she asked a very specific question. I don't remember exactly what it was, but I do remember the exact answer was written down in the margin of my book. Thanks book pal! I glanced around the class and saw that no one was going to venture a guess, so I raised my head and recited the answer from my book. The professor squinted her eyes, slightly frowned and responded. "No. No, that's not right." Normally when presented with a wrong answer, she responds with, "Well...let's talk about it." But no, apparently this answer was so far off, it wasn't even worth discussion. I looked back down at the book, breaking eye contact with my professor, wanting to place the blame on the previous owner. You punked me good ma'am (or sir with girly writing). Lesson Learned: The person that owned your book before you probably wasn't the professor.

Once again, yesterday I found myself in Organizational Behavior class. The teasing of my classmates had subsided, I began to think I could rebound from my previous embarassment. I sat in class, listening intently, still following along in my book. Today however, I was going to do some highlighting of my own. I took the highlighter from the girl next to me. It was a clicky highlighter, requiring that I press the button on the end of the marker to deploy the bight yellow tip. As I pushed the button, the loud Click-Click disrupted the room. I whinced. "Whoa...that was kinda loud." I whispered to my neighbor, the highlighter's owner. The professor stopped speaking, turned to me and recited a line I haven't heard since middle school, "Chris. Do you have a joke you'd like to share with the class?" I was taken by complete surprise, but immediately folded my hands together and replied "No." Which was the truth. Probably the best thing I could muster up would have been a short story about a loud highlighter. But this was my fault. I was unprepared and thus once again became the target of my classmates' laughter. I good joke would have no doubt appeased the professor and alieviated the stress of my classmates. I would have been a hero. But I let everyone down. Lesson Learned: Always have a joke prepared for class. You'll never know when you'll need it. I'd encourage you to write down a joke in the margin of your text book, not only will it help you when you're put on the spot. Perhaps it will help the future generations that purchase your used text book.

Heed my advice kids. Together, we can enrich each other's lives.