Murphy Laps, twice as long

Black ink titled my fresh notebook page with “Five things I noticed,” after taking a lap around the inner walls of Murphy this afternoon.  “This isn’t too bad,” I thought, not realizing I should have brought my running shoes for the three consecutive laps I would take post-list.

Number one, sounds of different shoes walking.  Two:  Room 111’s sign changed, now displaying “Journalism/Mass Communication” on the door.  Three, you must sign the equipment back into the lab.  No exceptions.  And so on.

Meanwhile, my syllabus rests impatiently on my green folder, and I wonder when we will read through that so I can get back outside and in the sunshine.

Instead, we lap again.  What can you hear?  What can you taste?  Is the water from the fountain a little bit metallic?  And we return to our wheely seats to make another list.

The stranger at the front of the room, my new professor, demanded specificity.

The walls are cold, the floor smells of fresh wax, Dr. Wilkins’ voice carries quite a bit, doesn’t it?

I listened intently to my co-learners and Professor Mackowski--I mean Chris--, enjoying their illustrations of different chip bags and the dirt on top of the vending machines, a detail which would have gone unnoticed by five-three me.

            And there’s the hidden lesson for today—it’s good to hear other perspectives.  So now what?

“It’s only the first day,” I thought.  “There’s no way the cowboy boot-wearing journalist will have us write something today.”

Funny; you’d think I’d know by now to always expect to write when I stroll into a JMC classroom.  But how does he want me to do it?

My brain chewed on the stale idea of “show, don’t tell,” but enjoyed the sound of the syllables in “specificity.”  I had never heard that word before, but took a mental note to use it sometime soon.

I clicked away at the dirty keyboard of the television-sized Mac after asking classmates on each side, “How the heck do I use this thing?”

Uncertainty and summertime writer’s block clogged up my creativity arteries like pudding, and before I could figure out how to save my pathetic work on the white machine, time was up.  Print the stories.  Revise for homework.

Class left me wondering who was responsible for cleaning the tops of vending machines and where on earth I put my flashdrive.