IT Class

I'm going to tell you a story.

It's called...

Max's IT Class

I'd been stuck inside my head all day, noticing things I don't usually notice. Like the dress code at Western. It seems that everyone wears basically the same thing, Jeans, some sort of t-shirt, and a hoodie. Well, the guys at least. It's funny, because I've come to recognize people by their hoodies. As if their hoodies are who they are. When someone goes out and buys a new hoodie, I won't recognize them for a week.
There's nothing more annoyingly creepy in the world than an unspoken dress code.

Anyway.

I'd been inside my head all day, sometimes that just happens. You get lost doing one task, and then suddenly you look outside and it's dark out and you wonder where all the time has gone.

Thats what it's like in IT class.

The shrill call of the Bell snaps me out of my reprieve, and I pack up my binders into my backpack.
I walk down the crowded and claustrophobic hallways of Western to... THE COMPUTER LAB.
Shuffling along the floor I sit in my spot.
There's no seating plan in IT, and every spot looks the exact same, but I sit in the same spot each and every day.
It's my spot.

I sit down in my chair.
It's very uncomfortable, even though it's cushioned. It curves my back forward and makes me stare at my computer even harder.

I log in.
Typically I don't visit D2l first.
Why the hell would I?
It's so damn easy to finish the assignments that I could waste half the class and still pull off an 83. Which incidentally I am.

I check my emails.
Some people really piss me off. Here's a quote from the end of one of my emails I received.
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. "
Thats nice.
Nietzsche incidentally.
Who the hell do you think you are?
Three years ago we were laughing our asses off at American Pie. Now suddenly you're Noam Chomsky?

Eventually I get bored.
I pull up a "skills exploration" project we're supposed to be doing.
Apparently this will help us with our resumes.
No ones ever been happy with a job they obtained by first handing in a resume.
Remember that.
It starts asking me all these questions.

1. What special interests or activities do you enjoy?
I thought about this for a while.
It doesn't really come out and ask you if you have a life, but at the same time.. it DOES.
I finally settled on..

I greatly enjoy repetitive tasks.

2. What extra-curricular activities are you involved in?
-N/A

3. What are your hobbies/talents
-Typing
-Writing
-Inputting Text
More come to mind.
I think I just ended up writing N/A

I became too angry with the questionnaire, so I ended up playing Tetris on some website.
Why is it than when you read a book by yourself, it's a marvelous, magical thing? Inventing your own world and getting lost in it seems to be wonderful, but when you play a game by yourself it's a socially damaging, fucked up activity.
I play games until the teacher catches me.
She doesn't care.
But she has to.

Next project is a web.
It's nice how they give you specific things that your web MUST have.
Must be blue
Must have yellow lines
Must have comic sans font.
Anyway..

Life is dull, but it could be worse and it could be better. We accept that tachers determine our life’s routines. It’s the trade-off so that we don’t have to be chronically unemployed creative types, and we know it. When we were younger, we’d at least make a show of not being fooled and draw pretty little pictures on everything. After a few years it just doesn’t matter. You trawl for jokes or amusingly diversionary .wav files. You download music. A new project comes along, then endures a slow-motion smothering at the hands of your classmates. All ideas feel stillborn. The air smells like five hundred sheets of paper.

I think I nodded off at this point.
It's easy to nod off in IT class.
I think everyone does it at one point or another.

I started googling things.
Mindless things, things I've always wanted to know the answer to. I've made it a bit of a game, trying to find more and more complex questions to ask and get a good answer.
But after a week of intense googling, I've kind of burnt out on knowing the answer to everything. God must feel this way all the time. I think that in the year 2020 people are going to be nostalgic for the feeling of being clueless.

Continuing on.
I go back inside my head.
Strange how no one really talks in IT.
I think only one or two people do.
And EVERYONE can hear their conversations.
There's no rule against talking... It's just that no one does it. How 1984.

I read Dr.Seuss.
I laugh at jokes no one tells.
People look at me.
I play some online racing game.
In New York, all the teenage boys are dying because they’re driving their cars using videogame physics instead of real-world physics. They turn too quickly and change lanes too quickly. They don’t understand traction or centripetal force. And they’re dropping like flies.
Thats about all really.

Sometimes I just stare at the blank monitor, trying to pick out dead pixels.
Then the bell rings and we shuffle like zombies out of the door

The hallway seems so so.. so Alive compared to IT. It's like emerging from solitary confinement after 5 years.
Everyone's talking.
I feel tired.
I'd really rather be sleeping. Or back in IT.
It's addicting.
I..
I..
I... need it.