Stop me if I've told you this story before.
As you get older, you have a repertoire of stories you like and you tell them over and over and refine them, but you forget who you've told them to.
This one is about my library frenemeny from college.
I studied in the stacks of the library in college. It was a very conducive place to study--you had a floor to ceiling window and along each of the four walls a different and lovely view of the campus, the streets, or along the South wall, a view of Providence, Rhode Island from College Hill, which was pretty spectacular.
From the floor vent, air rushed out sighing with a white noise sound and on the facing wall, shelves for your books, a wood slab surface for a desk and on the non window side the stacks, containing books, often very exotic books, so if you got tired of organic chemistry you could read about the history of the California gold rush, or maybe Vienna at the time of Freud and Klimt, or the life of Emily Dickinson, depending on which stack you happened to be sitting near.
Every day, I arrived at the library when it opened at 7:45 AM and set out my books and my models of molecules or whatever I needed and pasted my 3x 5 card with my daily schedule penciled in, on the wall in front of me. If I had an 8 o'clock class, I staked my claim and I was gone.
As things progressed, I found my favorite study carrel on the third floor, convenient to the stairwell, the bathroom and with good light in the morning and no blinding light in the late afternoon. The carrel was assigned to a graduate student who never used it, so it was, unofficially, mine.
Somewhere around October of my sophomore year, I noticed there was a guy who had apparently also staked a claim to a carrel, about twenty yards down the hall. He also arrived when the library opened, and he set out his stuff on his carrel much the way I did, but, mysteriously, I never saw him arriving. Just his stuff. He either got there just before or just after me and while I was in the bathroom, or busy setting up my stuff, he simply materialized.
During the day, we both had classes, so we were not always in place, but after dinner, we were both took our places in the trenches.
The library closed at 11 PM, but I always left at 10 PM, wanting to be in bed by 10:30 PM, so I could be up at 6 the next morning. It took me two months to notice, but I realized he was always there when I left at 10PM.
Except for two weeks in January--"reading period" before final exams--there wasn't any real competition for the carrels in the stacks. During those two weeks, a big crowd formed in front of the glass doors to the library and when they opened, a mad rush to the stairwells to the carrels, like those scenes of homesteaders claiming their stakes. But the rest of the year, there were only a scattering of other people in the stacks, maybe a dozen regulars on our floor.
After I settled in after 5 PM, I made two trips to the bathroom, one at 7 PM and one at 9PM and one night, I realized I had forgotten my watch on my desk and returned to get it and noticed my carrel mate was gone from his station.
For some reason, I decided to sit down and wait and sure enough, about 5 minutes later, he returned. My bathroom breaks were 10 minutes. I had them scheduled on my 3x5 card. He had left and returned in 5 minutes.
It occurred to me it was possible, he was timing his breaks to mine, but he was determined to be in his chair when I returned, so it appeared he never left.
I tested this out by shortening my next break to 3 minutes, returning at 7:03, and sure enough, when he returned 5 minutes later, he glanced down toward me and an unmistakable frown crossed his brow. I had not taken my full 10 minutes and was back in place early. He had expected me to be gone until 7:10 and he had expected to be back in place by 7:05 so I would never know he had left his chair. As I thought about it, once he arrived after 5 PM, it appeared he never budged from that chair, even for bathroom breaks. Now I saw how he did that.
I started reducing my breaks bit by bit, from 10 to 7 to 5 and ultimately down to 2.5 minutes. And each time I reduced my time, he reduced his, so he was always back before me.
One night, I decided to raise the stakes. Instead of packing up at 10 PM, I stayed put, reading genetics until 10:30. I noticed him checking me out of the corners of his eyes, but I would not budge. Finally, at 10:30, I scooped up all my books and hauled out.
But I just stayed in the stairwell for three minutes and then went back to my carrel. It was 10:33. He was gone.
Over ensuing months, I did a few reconnaissance missions when he had gone off to class during the day. I checked out his books. He was clearly in engineering, and judging from the courses, he was a freshman, in the class a year behind me. I never touched his books, although I was tempted to lift a cover, to see his name on the inside cover; I never did. I never knew his name.
All I knew about him was he was studying engineering, and he was Asian. For some reason, I decided Japanese.
Our silent relationship, our mutual stalking, our mental macho struggle continued until my senior year, until I got my first acceptance letter to medical school at the end of first semester.
Second semester, I spent far less time in the library. Sometimes, I would study on a different floor altogether. Sometimes I would study in my usual spot and take long breaks, sometimes an hour. It was Spring in Providence, and I'd walk outside and meet my girlfriend (acquired after my acceptance letter) for a break. When I got back, he was still there, but I could see, at a glance, for him the thrill was gone.
I was no longer in the game.
That next Fall, I studied in my medical school dorm room, in New York City, alone. Sometimes, I'd think about that guy, probably still studying in his carrel, looking down the hallway and not seeing me. Had he found someone new to defeat, to scurry back to his carrel for?
Did he wonder how I had dealt with defeat? Did he think I had committed Hari Kiri?
For all I know, he's still there.
As you get older, you have a repertoire of stories you like and you tell them over and over and refine them, but you forget who you've told them to.
This one is about my library frenemeny from college.
I studied in the stacks of the library in college. It was a very conducive place to study--you had a floor to ceiling window and along each of the four walls a different and lovely view of the campus, the streets, or along the South wall, a view of Providence, Rhode Island from College Hill, which was pretty spectacular.
From the floor vent, air rushed out sighing with a white noise sound and on the facing wall, shelves for your books, a wood slab surface for a desk and on the non window side the stacks, containing books, often very exotic books, so if you got tired of organic chemistry you could read about the history of the California gold rush, or maybe Vienna at the time of Freud and Klimt, or the life of Emily Dickinson, depending on which stack you happened to be sitting near.
Every day, I arrived at the library when it opened at 7:45 AM and set out my books and my models of molecules or whatever I needed and pasted my 3x 5 card with my daily schedule penciled in, on the wall in front of me. If I had an 8 o'clock class, I staked my claim and I was gone.
As things progressed, I found my favorite study carrel on the third floor, convenient to the stairwell, the bathroom and with good light in the morning and no blinding light in the late afternoon. The carrel was assigned to a graduate student who never used it, so it was, unofficially, mine.
Somewhere around October of my sophomore year, I noticed there was a guy who had apparently also staked a claim to a carrel, about twenty yards down the hall. He also arrived when the library opened, and he set out his stuff on his carrel much the way I did, but, mysteriously, I never saw him arriving. Just his stuff. He either got there just before or just after me and while I was in the bathroom, or busy setting up my stuff, he simply materialized.
During the day, we both had classes, so we were not always in place, but after dinner, we were both took our places in the trenches.
The library closed at 11 PM, but I always left at 10 PM, wanting to be in bed by 10:30 PM, so I could be up at 6 the next morning. It took me two months to notice, but I realized he was always there when I left at 10PM.
Except for two weeks in January--"reading period" before final exams--there wasn't any real competition for the carrels in the stacks. During those two weeks, a big crowd formed in front of the glass doors to the library and when they opened, a mad rush to the stairwells to the carrels, like those scenes of homesteaders claiming their stakes. But the rest of the year, there were only a scattering of other people in the stacks, maybe a dozen regulars on our floor.
After I settled in after 5 PM, I made two trips to the bathroom, one at 7 PM and one at 9PM and one night, I realized I had forgotten my watch on my desk and returned to get it and noticed my carrel mate was gone from his station.
For some reason, I decided to sit down and wait and sure enough, about 5 minutes later, he returned. My bathroom breaks were 10 minutes. I had them scheduled on my 3x5 card. He had left and returned in 5 minutes.
It occurred to me it was possible, he was timing his breaks to mine, but he was determined to be in his chair when I returned, so it appeared he never left.
I tested this out by shortening my next break to 3 minutes, returning at 7:03, and sure enough, when he returned 5 minutes later, he glanced down toward me and an unmistakable frown crossed his brow. I had not taken my full 10 minutes and was back in place early. He had expected me to be gone until 7:10 and he had expected to be back in place by 7:05 so I would never know he had left his chair. As I thought about it, once he arrived after 5 PM, it appeared he never budged from that chair, even for bathroom breaks. Now I saw how he did that.
I started reducing my breaks bit by bit, from 10 to 7 to 5 and ultimately down to 2.5 minutes. And each time I reduced my time, he reduced his, so he was always back before me.
One night, I decided to raise the stakes. Instead of packing up at 10 PM, I stayed put, reading genetics until 10:30. I noticed him checking me out of the corners of his eyes, but I would not budge. Finally, at 10:30, I scooped up all my books and hauled out.
But I just stayed in the stairwell for three minutes and then went back to my carrel. It was 10:33. He was gone.
Over ensuing months, I did a few reconnaissance missions when he had gone off to class during the day. I checked out his books. He was clearly in engineering, and judging from the courses, he was a freshman, in the class a year behind me. I never touched his books, although I was tempted to lift a cover, to see his name on the inside cover; I never did. I never knew his name.
All I knew about him was he was studying engineering, and he was Asian. For some reason, I decided Japanese.
Our silent relationship, our mutual stalking, our mental macho struggle continued until my senior year, until I got my first acceptance letter to medical school at the end of first semester.
Second semester, I spent far less time in the library. Sometimes, I would study on a different floor altogether. Sometimes I would study in my usual spot and take long breaks, sometimes an hour. It was Spring in Providence, and I'd walk outside and meet my girlfriend (acquired after my acceptance letter) for a break. When I got back, he was still there, but I could see, at a glance, for him the thrill was gone.
I was no longer in the game.
That next Fall, I studied in my medical school dorm room, in New York City, alone. Sometimes, I'd think about that guy, probably still studying in his carrel, looking down the hallway and not seeing me. Had he found someone new to defeat, to scurry back to his carrel for?
Did he wonder how I had dealt with defeat? Did he think I had committed Hari Kiri?
For all I know, he's still there.
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