Inertia

"It's a woman's right to choose,
after all, she's the one carrying it."

Rob hands us the ad and we stare at it. Two Kenneth Cole handbags on a purple couch, with the above caption. Finally I look up at the guys sitting across from me. "What do you think?" I ask. "I don't know," one of them replies, "women should buy their own purses?" I cough incredulously. For a moment I thought they were joking but apparently they weren't.

The silent study room isn't really silent. More like relatively silent, if we must be exact. There is the odd rustling of papers, here and there, the ever pervasive hum of the fans somewhere in the ceiling. The sign on the door to this room proclaims proudly the fact that it is naturally lit, but around this time of year, it's hard to say 'light' with any kind of certainty. It isn't dark outside, but the abundance of fluorescent light in here renders the winter clouds oppressive.

A man walks in, involuntarily disturbing the peace, and quickly rushes to comply. Several eyes survey him as he fumbles within his bag to produce a textbook and some notes. Within moments he too is silent, and the eyes have reverted back to their studies.

Outside in the street, a man is shouting revolution or the second coming of the messiah. I have no way to know what he is saying or why. Political protest? Drug addict? It could be either. A few people leave their desks to look out the window. They can't see anything, so they go back to studying.

It would take a lot more than that to stop the the forced silence in here.

I feel like a spy here. I've infiltrated this place of holy sanctuary to write this, to talk about trivial things to Europeans that are staying up past their bedtimes to be on msn. It's getting close to exam time there, did you know? As much as I try to forget it, exams are always lurking over the horizon here too. Four more weeks.