Blessed Are the Cheesemakers

I'm writing a masters for my sins.

I was appointed postgraduate class representative a few weeks ago. I didn't ask to be, nor did I especially desire the position, nor do I even live in St Andrews, so it all seemed like one terrific charade to me. That is, until today, when I had to go to my first meeting.

I consulted my planner during my morning lecture and saw "TLA MEETING 1PM, ROOM 7" scrawled across today's block. I don't remember writing it, but that is neither here not there. The real mystery was, and remains to the time of writing, what TLA stands for.

Possibilities:
Teacher Love Assocation
The Last plAce you want to be
don'T faLl Asleep
The Largest pArade of egos

I considered raising my hand and asking, but everyone who is anyone was there, and frankly those people have quite a lot of say in whether or not I can graduate, so instead I continued to work quietly on my list of possible acronyms.

In the past, once or twice, I have been called easygoing. The phrase "laid back" has been thrown around quite a few times. The truth is, I am simply not a person who is going to swagger into a meeting like that with my guns blazing. That is, until people start being idiotic.

The issue of the short loan system was on the table. Professor Nameless was professing his shock and horror over the fact that sometimes -- gasp -- first year students will decide to simply skip out on assigned reading when faced with navigating the treacherous waters of the short loan system at the library.

[Editor's note: the St A's library is wretched. Aside from being architecturally grim, the collection is limited, the IT resources atrocious, and the photocopiers cost too much. Plus it shuts at odd hours and there aren't enough tables or plugs for laptops and the carpet is the color of cat pee. In a word, it is unusable. And smells of cat pee. DON'T GET ME STARTED ON SHORT LOAN.]

He was getting awfully worked up about it. One by one the student reps were attempting to explain to him why the prospect of checking a book out for four hours and then having the option of either spending a week's worth of food money on photocopying or sitting in cat pee and reading it straight through was not appealing. He could not see the problem from waaaay up on his high horse, you see, so I said evenly:

I think the real issue here is that you only require your students a passing grade of 5 in the first year. Raise the stakes and you'll get them reading.

[crickets]

Professor Nameless: I'm glad we have the postgraduate opinion, would anyone else like to weigh in?

Oh, the silent fury. I could have bent metal with my mind. See, this is what happens when I blaze my guns (does that even make any sense?) -- it's such a fruitless effort. I felt like I was on student council all over again, only with even less power, and the meeting was much longer and none of my friends were there.

In short: it was Totally LAme.


[ps: this post is dedicated to Bridget, former class representative, and someone who probably knows the real acronym]