Everyone needs to take a chill pill

Why do professors insist on making students read things out loud? It is a painful experience for both the student who is selected to read and the class that is forced to listen. The teacher always picks the worst possible student to read. The information is read at an incredibly slow pace, and the kid mispronounces words as if it is his job. Compounding this frustration is the instictive habit to read the material to yourself as soon as it is handed out to you. For some reason, I always forget that someone is probably going to have to read the handout aloud.Today in class, the professor had a girl read an essay to the class while he handed back our papers. The girl started to read and everything was going as expected, when all of a sudden the professor started yelling out names. You see, it is too early in the year for professors to know our names, so he has to call them out. The poor girl was completely thrown off by the random yelling of names, and she did not know what to do. She kept stopping every time he called out a name and then continuing very hesitantly. I swear I thought she was going to break down and cry. Halfway through the essay, she simply put it down and declared that she was done, and the class silently approved. The next morning, I was late for class again, as usual. I normally like to sit toward the middle of the row. This way, I do not have to get up every time someone wants to go to the bathroom. Today, however, I had to settle for an aisle seat. The person next to me kept giving me dirty looks as I unpacked my bagel and proceeded to make a mess of the cream cheese on the tiny excuse of a desktop they give us. Not only was I stuck with an aisle seat, but it was a left-handed desk. I didn’t even know they made left-handed desks. I hardly think there are enough left-handed people in the world to warrant them having their own desks. I mean, come on, they are practically genetic freaks of nature. Anyway, the aisle stinks because at the end of class, there is always this mad rush to get the hell out, and you are the clumsy slow kid everyone hates. The guy in the row ahead of me got nervous, tried to get out too fast and ended up tripping and falling down the stairs – that is always a shame. I do not understand why everyone is so antsy. The professor will be in the middle of a sentence and everyone will start making a huge commotion packing up their bags. It is just assumed that nothing he says in the last five minutes is going to be important. It is as if there is a difference between the last five minutes and any other given point in the class lecture. If you are in such a rush to get out of a class, why did you come in the first place? This sense of everyone being in some big hurry does not just exist in the classroom. It is spreading frantically everywhere! For instance, people are always in a rush in the elevator. I have definitely seen people frantically pushing the buttons before someone can walk nearby and hold them up. When I am in the elevator, I always feel like someone is going to come in at the last second, just like the scene in “The Terminator” where the guy turns his hand into a spike and jams it through the elevator door. In summation, chill out people! Kutcher can be reached atjkutcher@campustimes.org.