Thursday, July 24, 2008

Back of the Bus



Never really arrives

One of the axioms of life that I have learned is, 'It all depends on where you sit'. Much like the 'Glass half empty, glass half full' question, it tells a lot about a person even though they don't know it.

From the time we were in grade school, certain children always wanted to sit in the back of the bus. They usually wanted to be as far away from authority (the bus driver) as possible, so they wouldn't be caught doing things they weren't supposed to.

Fast forward to college, and I realized that the same thing applied to 20-somethings. The slacker students always sat in the back of the class. They rarely lasted more than a semester. In the beginning, I usually sat somewhere in the middle of the classes. I suppose I was a slight under-achiever.

Then it dawned on me in my junior year. If you wanted to get ahead in life you had to take on the world and meet it face to face. The "A" students always sat in the front row. So I started sitting in the front row. I quickly realized that when you do this, you are mano y mano with the instructor, you have to have your homework done, you have to be prepared and sharp. You have to be engaged. You aren't a spectator anymore, you are in the bull ring.

While taking the bus home from work, I usually stand near the exit. That way, I don't have to worry about finding a seat and who might end up sitting next to me. The back of the bus is always crowded, with the transients, the homeless and the rebellious, slacker youth.

I am so glad I learned to move to the head of the class in college. Once you muster up the courage to sit in the front row, you will never sit in the back of the bus again.

6 comments:

  1. This is interesting to me. I know it holds true most of the time, but I am an ananomaly.

    I went to a 2-room private school for grades 1-8. Always assigned desks, and I was very rarely not on the front row. I hated the front row. I begged to be away from it, but two of the three teachers I had in those days were pretty much jerks, and they made me sit there for fun, I think. I was originally there because my last name was near the front of the alphabet. But when things got shifted (rarely), I was still stuck in the front.

    When I got to high school (still a small, private school, but not like elementary school), I usually sat in the middle. The rowdy kids were in the back, and there was NO WAY I was sitting in the front.

    By college I had moved to the back. Again a small college, so not like a public university, but I liked the back. I just made sure I didn't sit by the loud, obnoxious ones.

    My grades through all of this were A's, with a rare B thrown in a couple of times.

    For work in high school and college, my jobs were often grading papers for teachers, therefore I knew the grades everyone made in certain classes. I always hypothesized that sitting in the front early in life forced good listening and study habits on a person and that carried over throughout one's education.

    But this makes me realize that though my theory may be OK, people are not set in the pattern forever if they choose not to be. Possibly it is likely that sitting in the front young helps develop some good habits, but choosing to sit in the front later can have the same results. Now I have a lot more thinking to do. This whole question is something I have thought about for years, actually since I graded papers.

    But don't judge me for sitting in the back! I promise I'm paying attention!

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  2. My place in the classroom, especially in college, depended upon my interest in the subject matter.

    History, Philosophy, Religion, Film, Sociology...anything to do with the Arts, I was right up in the front row.

    All the requirments for my major...back row, if I showed up at all. I took an Artificial Intelligence course back in '88 and I went twice the whole year. The teacher wasn't really interested in teaching, so I wasn't really interrested in attending. Got an A.

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  3. All you poor folks that were assigned seating in class get a free hall pass. Sitting in a seat that is NOT assigned to you is much worse than sitting in the front row. Obviously I grew up in a much more liberal environment.

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  4. I agree....although I have noticed that when I ride the shuttle bus the lazy shove right in first and sit right in the front...instead of allowing the bus to fill from back to front so that the last people don't have to get in and walk sideways down the center aisle until they find a seat at the back.

    The opposite applies to church. People fill the back pews first and move forward...so that the only seats left for anyone arriving is right up in the front with their knees smashed into the pulpit.

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  5. scary people sit in the back, the kind that just sits alllll the way back into the seat and get all comfortable.. why would you want to get comfortable in a bus?

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  6. So, you stand near the exit on the bus? Your instinct to get ahead in life has led you to brag about this pattern of behavior that slows down the bus for you and everyone else on it. People slow down to get past you or else you dodge them. Perhaps you do not notice this or do not care.

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