{"id":78,"date":"2010-10-08T09:05:44","date_gmt":"2010-10-08T14:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/?p=78"},"modified":"2010-10-08T09:20:28","modified_gmt":"2010-10-08T14:20:28","slug":"the-line-jumping-rant-and-studying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/2010\/10\/the-line-jumping-rant-and-studying\/","title":{"rendered":"The Line-Jumping Rant and Studying"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Attack the food from the front, not the side.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Line-jumping (the act of moving ahead of someone in the lunch line) is not illegal. It\u2019s not forbidden or, as Zach puts it, \u201ccheating\u201d. If I want one item from the array of food and there\u2019s a line of twenty people, believe me, I will skip ahead to get it. It\u2019s not morally wrong. It\u2019s not taboo. It\u2019s survival of the fittest. I\u2019m perfectly content with moving ahead of others, and they should be too.<\/p>\n

In fact, I propose a new food-gathering strategy. Instead of attacking food from the side, we should attack it from the front. That way, we won\u2019t have to stand in twenty-person lines to pick up our food\u2014we can just walk up to it, scoop it up and go.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, some people don\u2019t approve of this approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cExcuse me,\u201d I said to the girl in front of me. \u201cI\u2019m just going to get some mashed potatoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, honey, I\u2019ve been in this line\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

I kind of tuned her out and scooped up my mashed potatoes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you like some?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

I shrugged and walked away.<\/p>\n

Ugh.<\/p>\n

Maybe next time I won\u2019t get so lucky. Maybe a giant food fight will initiate because of my line-jumping tendencies and the mashed potatoes will end up in my hair and then I\u2019ll throw food back and other people will join in and it\u2019ll be like one of those scenes from the Disney Channel movies where the whole cafeteria gets involved. Unfortunately, as fun as it would be, I don\u2019t want to waste food like that because the signs around the stations say not to and I\u2019d hate washing marshmallow surprise out of my hair.<\/p>\n

Other stuff includes my latest novel endeavor (which I may workshop with the rest of the Writer\u2019s floor), final projects for my first-year seminar and general studying (exciting, right?).<\/p>\n

Studying kind of feels like psychic pressure. There\u2019s not really any work, but you feel pressure anyway. Maybe it\u2019s because the syllabus is like your warning sign and as dates approach, it\u2019s like, \u201cHey\u2026Hey\u2026HEY. YOU HAVE A TEST.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would explain the stress, I guess.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, kids don\u2019t realize they have tests and essays because they don\u2019t check the syllabus, like when James had to write his essay in twelve hours. He and Zach and I were chatting when he glanced at his syllabus to ensure everything was fine for tomorrow\u2019s class.<\/p>\n

It was like a surprise boss level in a videogame.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh [expletive],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t really sleep that night. He spent it in the ITC writing like a chicken with its head cut off, and the next afternoon when I stopped by to tutor Zach in chemistry, he was still asleep.<\/p>\n

\u201cJames,\u201d I said. \u201cJames, you have to get up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat time is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 6:00 (-ish, maybe? It\u2019s hard to remember).\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a muffled response and James rolled out of bed.<\/p>\n

He was exhausted, but at least his paper was finished. For that, I commend him. Commendations, James.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Line-jumping (the act of moving ahead of someone in the lunch line) is not illegal. It\u2019s not forbidden or, as Zach puts it, \u201ccheating\u201d. If I want one item from the array of food and there\u2019s a line of twenty people, believe me, I will skip ahead to get it. It\u2019s not morally wrong. It\u2019s … Continue reading The Line-Jumping Rant and Studying<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academics","category-campuslife","category-drama","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/85"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}