My Community Experience

Some of my friends and family have steered me towards this fabulous little show this year. And more and more, I am my life imitating art, or the show. You see, I too am attending community college right now. I have my bachelors degree hanging on my wall at home, and it is valid unlike that of the main character in Community. As I am pursuing my new degree, community college is just the wiser financial choice for finishing all my prerequisites. And I've been noticing this guy who has been in my classes, not noticing as in "Man, he's hot" - he's OK looking I guess, but trust me, my "gaydar" is sounding off like crazy with this fellow. I've been noticing, in a little way, he reminds me of Jeff, the main character on the Community.

I'm going to call my classmate Jeff Wanna-be, because though there is some similarity, actually, he's no where near the good guy the Jeff character is. He just thinks he is. Wanna-be is not just out of high school, college age. He's probably around my age. I can tell he is intelligent and he likes people to know it. The curves on our biology exams last semester were usually set by one of our test scores. And though there is no curve in Chemistry, I think he did well on our first exam. But a girl that I studied for with Biology, we couldn't get together before one of our exams, so she met with wanna-be's study group for some help. I'm just sayin'... She did a lot better on the exams with she studied with me, that the test she studied with him. He likes to have attention. He has a little posse in our class (much like the posse in Community with all the differences between the members). He loves to be heard. He loves to lean over to a classmate and explain how HE got the answer to a problem the professor is explaining to the rest of the class. He loves to shout out the answer before the professor solves the problem (though isn't always correct). I personally find him to be VERY annoying. This is remedial Biology and Chemistry that we've been studying. It's not difficult. True, there are some students who struggle with it, but really. Just let the professor explain for everyone else and sit back and listen. We aren't impressing anyone by already knowing how to do this stuff. I end up doing my homework most days, while the professor is explaining stuff, it's a lot like how I spent class time I was in high school. I am pretty darn bored in class, but I listen and figure, less study time outside of class because my professor is pounding it into my mind during class.

Yesterday was my favorite of all. The moment went like this:

Setting the scene: The professor is writing a problem from our book on the board, he pauses... and then writes, but write the wrong "technical word 2" in the equation...

Me, quite quietly (I sit at the front of the room and was just letting the professor know. And for the record I only mention something is off if the error will have a negative effect on the problem.): "The question in the book actually asks for "technical word 1" (I won't bore you with the real terminology)"

Jeff Wanna-be, in a loud boisterous voice: "It doesn't matter, "technical word 1" and "technical word 2" mean the exact same thing."

Me, a little bit louder voice, but still to myself: "No, actually they mean two very different things."

At this point the girl sitting next to me chuckles a little.

The professor goes back to the book, looks at what he wrote, and then announces, "No she's correct. The book asks for "technical word 1." These are two very different things."

The boy sitting next to Jeff Wanna-be says in jest, "Hehe, she is right, you are wrong."
Jeff Wanna-be, in a voice emoting damaged pride: "Oh, I m-m-must have b-b-been confused. I knew they weren't th-th-the same."
Girl next to me now laughs out loud.

But how do we know even though Jeff Wanna-be is wrong that he hasn't dropped his cool guy status? The girl next me, though she asked me for help all throughout class, and as always, I'm more than happy to help her out - by asking her what she did, and how she should proceed, etc - I don't just give the answers away, what help is that? After class was over, she went to the back of the room and asked him when the posse was going to get together to study. Oh my! Good luck improving your grade.

Isn't community college the best? I'm sure I'll more to say later...