Word of the Day: arbitrary One of my favorite things to do is to sit at the table on second floor Braniff and watch the people. I love to see what people do, how they sit when they study, things like that. I started out sitting up there only because I have an hour between biology and economics and I could study quietly there, and only so I could watch Dan (which has become a hobby of mine) out of the corner of my eye as he sat in the foyer. As the semester has moved on, I think I've done less and less studying and more and more watching of people other than Dan. The history professors' offices are across the opening from my table, and I've become a staple in their routine. Sometimes Dr. Jodziewicz and Professor Hanssen give me smiles of hello as they go off to teach or to the library. I like to watch interaction between people the most, when they accidentally meet in Braniff, one coming from the Registrar's office and the other coming in to go up to the philosophy department. I like to note how people are dressed and how they walk--whether they walk slowly and leisurely or quickly with short steps. Watching professors walk through the foyer to the stairs is also a joy of mine, espeically when it's Dr. Rosemann and he's talking to someone in his nifty German accent. I like to be a silent and secret witness to genuine human interaction. I can detect, from my place, if a person is angry, confused, or pleased. I get to know people as they stand and talk below me or as they study at the same table every day. I very much enjoy when there are children playing in the foyer because they seem to take so much joy from life. I wonder, can I make people watching into a profession? I would if I could. I know for sure that this little trait of mine is going to help me when I start writing because I know so many characters I could borrow from. The weather's starting to change into fall. It's not a sunny day today, a sign that the season's changing. The breeze is a little cooler than it has been before. I can't wait till I can wear sweaters and boots everyday without having to change between classes becuase it got hot. I hate this in-between time, but I'm glad it happens. Junior Poet panels start this week. That's going to be me in a year. I almost can't believe that I'm going to be in Junior Poet, one of the most difficult classes at UD. But I'm kind of glad about it. It's going to cultivate in me the love of poetry that I don't have. I'm going to have to know my poet (which will probably be Keats) backwards and forwards, inside and out, and it's getting pretty scary. The class just sounds daunting: four fifty minute classes a week, reading everything my poet ever wrote, annotations, notes, major research into the life of the man, so much effort for this class, along with my other four classes that I can't slack off in. I don't know how so many people do it, how I'm going to do it. But I take heart in the fact that English is the second most popular graduating major at UD, so I know a lot of people get through it without dying. I just wish, sometimes, I weren't crazy and wanted to be a writer. ___________________________________ Oh, yeah. And I love James Frain. Above: as Forney in 'Where the Heart Is.' Below: as Whistler in 'Shadowlands.'