Almanac of Miscellaneous Merriment: Oatmeal Monday, October 8th

Oatmeal Monday

According to my Forgotten English Calendar of Vanishing Vocabulary and Folklore, today is the traditional Monday, during the midterm week of nineteenth-century Scottish universities, where "fathers were allowed to bring sacks of oatmeal to sustain their sons for the term's duration" (Forgotten English Calendar of Vanishing Vocabulary and Folklore).

Now, a while it may seem like the average Scottish university student had a very boring and bland meal plan, with a sack of oatmeal at midterms, it turns out that oatmeal is quite versatile. Check out this recipe for Oatmeal Soup. It seems that oatmeal was so versatile for the college student diet that the modern equivalent would be a midterm care package of of Top Ramen.

Or perhaps it was a nicer gesture than that. I honestly wouldn't have been very happy to get a care package of Top Ramen when I was in college, even if it was from home.

And speaking of college days, I visited the ol' alma mater this morning and was pleasantly surprised (not!) by one of the librarians on campus while I was making a periodical donation. We were chatting about the new library addition and how much the library has changed from when I attended school pre-1999 when it was just a hole in the ground that caused major student/pedestrian traffic problems. She asked me "You graduated in '99?" with a semi-shocked look on her face. I responded in the affirmative. She then said, and I am not lying, joking or exaggerating: "You can't tell; you look just like a normal person."

Well, thank you ma'am, I appreciate the compliment, because, you know, we who graduated in that other century, we slowly turn into cod once we are out of the fishbowl of BYU.

That's not what I said.

I just said "thank you," because I am sure she meant to say, "You look just like a normal student."

Yeah right. I know I don't look like a student any more. They don't ask me if I am a student at the Visitor Parking. That is a sure sign that I no longer look young.

And, can I just say, that even though I work every day in Provo, I have not visited campus probably in about a year, and I had no idea how huge the new Alumni Building is?! It's shockingly huge. And maybe it just seems so big because nothing was really there before, or maybe because the building style just doesn't seem to fit the rest of campus. I don't know, it just didn't feel right, and I want to protest the building. It shouldn't be for alumni. It's too big. The biggest, nicest (arguably) building on campus should serve the students, not to stroke the already usually inflated egos of the donating alumni.

Okay. Wow. That was an opinion. I guess I am glad that my blog is not well read.

Anyway, for another tangent, on my way back to the office, I listened to the lyrics for "I Can't Drive 55." I actually listened to the lyrics, probably for the first time, from an adult point of view, and I have a totally different opinion of the song. I used to think it was just a rebel rock song, but now I think that it is a legitimate complaint against a policy change.