I glance down at my mobile: ‘12:05,’ it reads. “Ok, so where exactly is the rest of my class?” I start to wonder as I sit down on a hallway bench right outside the empty classroom in which my creative writing seminar is scheduled. But still, there is not a stir inside this classroom. Due to the university’s bizarre scheduling of all pm class at ten minutes past the hour, I still have five minutes until class actually starts. “Well, I guess people must be cutting it pretty close” I start to think.
But people are not just cutting it close. Neither the professor nor the other fifteen students in my poetry module are on their way to class at all, and I know this. I know this because the same exact freak occurrence happened last week, at the exact same time, in the exact same hallway, involving me sitting down on the exact same bench, outside the exact same classroom reaching the exact same conclusion: “Well, I guess class must be cancelled today.”
But no. “There’s no way that class could be cancelled two weeks in a row and I don’t get one email, before or after class, letting me know about it” I start to reason. But, at the moment, with no other viable possibilities present in my mind, I resign to believe again in my hypothesis. Sheepishly, I stand up from my bench, put on my hat and jacket, and begin the walk back to my flat.
On the walk back, I start calculating the increasing number of weeks it has been since I have been present at this poetry seminar: “Ok, so we had a reading week the week before last, so I know for sure there was definitely no classes that week. Then last week, I showed up and hung around for twenty minutes and nothing was going on, so I’m almost positive seminar was cancelled that week. And then today, if seminar is indeed cancelled, this will be the third week in a row that we didn’t have class.” I am suspicious: “This number does seem a bit high,” I start to think. Given that I am traditionally accustomed to classes meeting up to three times a week, the possibility of going almost four weeks without class meeting seems impossible. I have reached my the door to my building, turn the key and start up the stairs, headed to my room where I will, just like last Monday, check my email to see if I have a notification from my professor notifying me of our seminar’s cancellation.
But there is no email, and I knew there would not be. Flustered, I check the course register online to reassure myself that the class itself has not been cancelled for the year (for this seems to me to be the next most probable option I can think of) and indeed it has not been. Then, I check the course outline to see if perhaps the missing weeks are explained there, but again this yields no results. Now perhaps a bit paranoid, I examine the course information, to double check to see if I had indeed been slumped on a bench outside of the wrong classroom for two weeks in a row. I found that I had not been incorrect.
“Damn,” I say aloud. “What could it be?” I thought. Exasperated, I slump down on my (horridly uncomfortable) bed. Then it hits me. I rush back to my laptop and read once again the course information. Finally, all is revealed. “Holy shit, Luke” I think to myself in disgust, “you’re officially a dumbass!” I check my mobile. ‘12:35,’ it reads. “Ok,” I think to myself, while doing some quick math “I have 25 minutes to get to my poetry seminar ... that should be enough time for a cup of tea.”
As I put the kettle on, I realize the pathetic truth behind the events that have just transpired: Due to my absence from class for over two weeks, I had forgotten the time that it meets. And the most depressing part? It’s November, late November ... LW
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