And so it begins...

Tomorrow is my first day of classes, and in honor of that, I want to share a small moment I witnessed at the Columbia campus the other week:

So I'm walking around the main campus, hoping to get myself a little more familiar with the layout--look, I wanted to feel smart, ok?  I figured I would step off the street and onto the Ivy League campus and I would bathe in the waves of intelligence and excellence that roll of the sides of the buildings like rain.  So I eventually end up in the college bookstore and I'm wandering the aisles, looking at the the merchandise I can get with COLUMBIA stamped on the sides in big letters.  It really is quite impressive.  You need something, they got it: mugs, shirts, towels, pens, golf balls, notebooks, ties.  I'm surprised they don't sell toilet paper with the school crest on it.  I can see it now: Buy Columbia University bathroom tissue (because they would never deign to call it "toilet paper") and even your ass will feel the satisfaction of an overpriced education!

Anyway, as I'm meandering through the store, I pass a group of guys clustered in one of the book aisles.  As I hover over the clearance rack (story of my life) I can't help but hear a part of their highly animated discussion.  I can't remember word for word, but it went something like this:

Douche #1:  Blah blah blah look at how smart I am blah blah blah

Douche #2:  You imbecile!  Blah blah see how I rebut your argument to show off my higher IQ blah

Douche #3:  I concur.  Blah blah pretentious blather blah blah

Douche #1:  Huzzah!  Blah blah condescension and arrogance blaggity blah blah

Ok, well, it probably wasn't that exactly...  Still, I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised that a Top 10 school would have characters like these, but these guys looked like they were freshman.  Columbia hasn't even had time to pump up their academic egos yet, and they're already sounding like pricks.  Maybe it's my fault for hanging out in a book store in the middle of summer vacation--maybe all the normal people are off at the beach or something.  Let's hope so, cause if I have to deal with people like that in my classes, this is going to be a looooooooooong year.