I looked up, a little surprised. I had just been going over a story I’d written some time ago with the idea of revising it when the familiar sounds of jingling and anxious students sliding books into bags arose. I don’t know what it is about students, but they seem to have the uncanny ability to know exactly when a teacher is wrapping up a lesson. Maybe it starts with just one person sending out a silent signal by closing their book: Hey, guys, ya think he’s done yet? And then the others respond by capping their pens and loosening the zippers on their bags: Yup, he’s about finished. And then the teacher hurries, realizing he’s about to lose his listeners entirely. And then again, there’s me: Huh? Are we done? We still have time yet.

I’m a clock-watcher, myself. This means I start to get anxious if the minute hand is on the 51, but am perfectly at ease when it’s on, say, 49. The professor has a whole darn minute left – show some respect!

But as I said: I looked up, a little surprised. Checking my watch, I saw the time was about 11:30, and yet the bodies around me were already going through the motions of packing up. Usually Joe went on for at least another ten minutes before he began to wrap up his mostly one-sided discussion on whatever story we’d been assigned to read. I felt sorry for the guy that so few responded to him. One just didn’t command much respect with a name like Joe. Joe was your mechanic, or the guy next door, not your English professor. He was a nice guy who showed up in jeans and a tucked-in flannel worn over a clean turtleneck, and his class just wore on for an hour too long.

“Well,” announced Joe. “I guess class is letting out a little early today.”

Surprised, but pleased, I tucked my little notebook away and dumped the textbook into my bag on top of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, then carefully pulled on my warm leather jacket. Thus bundled up, I left the classroom and wad herded downstairs by the crowd. Outside, my face was bitten by the wind; I burrowed deeper into my layers of clothing. Feet turned to the Bernhard Center (as they always are after class), I proceeded on my way.

As I made my way up some steps, I noticed a girl come out of Dunbar. I marveled at her hair, which was many inches in length and stuck out at nearly all angles, gently waving in the breeze. How on earth could a gaijin get her hair to do that? It looked most Tetsu-ish (Tetsu is the bassist of my favorite band L’arc~en~Ciel) in both color and style. It brought to mind the laments of my fellow westerner Jrock fans that they could never, no matter how much makeup they put on, look remotely Japanese.

Passing her, I hung a right toward the clock tower. The clock has a name, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is. A sort of symbol of the university, the very modern-looking clock adorns employee credit cards, the webpage, numerous bags and tee shirts, and most notably every paper and pamphlet on whatever topic passed out for whatever reason.

Another girl overtook me on the left and I recognized her as belonging to my English class. Sporting a large pink coat, she looked even plainer and less desirable than she ad in class. She had a sharp nose that gave her a severe and disapproving expression even when she smiled. I wouldn’t have paid her a bit of mind if she hadn’t reminded me of someone. Then it hit me: Lisa. She reminded me of a girl I’d worked with briefly over the summer, Lisa, whom I had avoided and lied to so as not to be recognized when she’d approached me at a friend’s New Year’s party. Lisa was a nice enough girl, but not what I’d call college material; this girl wasn’t her.

Once the connection was made, my mind moved away from the girl in the pink coat and back to thoughts of writing. I’d been berating myself for some time about not working on any of my stories. I had a vague memory about making a resolution the previous year – I’d vowed to get a story published, or in the very least make lead way in that direction. Did a small list of contest websites that I had never visited count?

There was a chirping sound behind me and a girl answered: “Yeah. I’m here.” I wondered briefly what that was supposed to mean. It sounded to me as if someone had told her where to go, and now she was there. Or perhaps there was some doubt as to her whereabouts and she needed to declare it, for it really was more of a declaration than an answer to a question.

I heard another chirping ahead of me and noticed a man in a business suit talking into what more resembled a microphone than a cell phone from the way he was holding it. He looked funny and out of place to me as I wondered about his business. There was another chirping after he’d passed me and I turned to watch him hurry down the steps and away.

I’d been a bit ill and the cold weather was beginning to get to me, so rather than meet my friends briefly in the Cyber Café, I ducked into Waldo and warmth. I was greeted by the high-pitched whine of electricity, trying not to wince as I pushed through the plastic gate that would beep madly if you tried to carry out a book that hadn’t been checked at the desk. I’d never checked anything out at this library before as it wasn’t very big on fiction outside of a few decaying classics. Nothing against Dickens, he’s just a bit long-winded for me.

The cries of the security system faded into rustling and sniffling as I walked past hallways of books and study tables. I’d hate to reshelf the tombs left lying about. The district library was bad enough, though the pay had been recently increased to $5.40 an hour.

I made my way past the numerous patrons taking advantage of the Internet hook-up and checking their e-mail (mostly Hotmail, I noticed). I continued on to the near back of the building where there was a terminal sort of hidden away amongst the shelves. Between classes, I often went here to look up articles and take advantage of the swift Net connection myself. Someone was already there, though; a young man with long side-burns and unkempt hair. He hunched over the keyboard as if he’d been there a while. I wondered if he’d been surfing for porn as so many often do.

I had a few hours to kill before Japanese class at two, so settled down at a nearby table that always seemed to be covered in crumbs. (I think this was to dissuade people from sitting there to monitor the hidden terminal, which was exactly what I intended to do.) There were a few things I could’ve done: read the English assignment, look over the rough draft of an essay whose final draft was due Tuesday, read more in Harry Potter. But my short little walk from Brown to Waldo had put me in a mood. Since I’ve known these moods to be brief and fleeting, I pulled out my little green notebook and a recently restocked pencil and, with great relief, I began to write.