the weather here lately had been fantastic. for the past week it’s been noticeably cool instead of boring old perfect like always. still sunny, just cooler, and more autumny, which is so nice after about 6 months of absolutely constant lack of weather variation. i’m liking it a lot and it’s making me more cheerful.

this weekend is parents’ weekend here at school. exciting, i know. my parents live too far away to come (don’t worry mom, this isn’t me saying my parents don’t love me), so really this has no effect on me. except that today in my asian religions class, a girl had brought her mother and father to class, and the three of them were sitting a couple rows in front of me. this allowed me to make a few observations:

1) i could never bring my parents to class with me. it just would not work. even if it was a huge three hundred student lecture class, and they wouldn’t be that noticeable, i still could never do it. what made me think of this specifically was when the girl’s mother, sitting beside her, put her arm around the girl for a minute and sort of squeezed her shoulder. it’s a normal, motherly sort of thing to do, and it was very brief, but seeing that in a classroom setting was somehow very offputting. but even if nothing like this were to happen, i still couldn’t bring my parents to class with me. not to say that i wouldn’t want them to see what my classes and teachers are like, especially the good ones. i think it would be really great for them to experience what my classes are like; but for that to ever happen, i’m afraid my parents would have to learn to become invisible. it’s just the way things have to be.

2) speaking of experiencing the classroom — i don’t think parents know what it’s like to sit through lectures, in a lot of cases. these two certainly didn’t. bear in mind, this is one of the more interesting, attention-holding lecturers i’ve had at this school, not to mention it only being a 50 minute class. after half an hour, the father began looking at his watch pretty regularly, and both of them looked about as restless as any party-recovering college student on a friday morning after a thursday night. i’d like to see one of my parents, or any parent, go through a week of classes — setting aside the fact they might not know what was going on, just assuming they already knew all the prerequisite course material — and see how really unbearable it can be sometimes. maybe it would make them appreciate more that college isn’t always very fun at all.

3) (and this one isn’t quite as lofty as the previous two) parents usually don’t really know how to dress casually and still have any sort of style. i think they get used to dressing business-casual for work purposes, and just give up on the idea of being fully casual but still having any fashion sense. this isn’t a harsh critique; you kind of have to love a dad sitting two rows in front of me with a little “Gear For Sport” insignia on the back of his windbreaker, but honestly, when do you think was the last time this guy played any sport? it’s one of those loveable but baffling things about parents that i’m not looking forward to falling victim to if ever i become one. it sounds judgmental, but don’t hate me. i’m only saying it because it makes me smile, not because i think it’s bad.