wash u jargon 101

After much too much shopping fun and parking lots and going from one end of the store to the other and such, I made it to the last stop at the grocery store. There are a couple people waiting outside, so I ask them if they'd like a ride. Well, the guy says he actually goes to SLU, so he isn't headed my way. Interesting, by the way; I must not be the only one to have had bad things happen at the Schnucks near his school.

The other girl could be described as indecisive (yeah, I don't know anybody else like that), but after a second, said that would be nice. Between this and the fact that she is waiting on the shuttle to take her back to campus, I make the reasonable sounding assumption that she must be a freshman. So I start asking things like what dorm does she live in and whether she is headed to the South 40 or main campus and whatnot and each question gets that incredibly fun response of completely not understanding. I literally was talking a foreign language to her, and I kept using different phrases and it kept not helping. At all. She would respond back with statements and questions that I now see made sense, but didn't make any sense in the context of the conversation I was having at the time.

I finally got that she was a grad student in the law school and that she didn't have a whole lot of exposure to the wider Wash U campus. So, my instinct that she was new wasn't entirely off-base, she is a 1L, but it makes perfect sense now how she was not following what I figured everybody at Wash U knew.

So, I think within the Wash U Bubble, we need to add a subcategory for undergrads. Those poor law students are helpless (uh, no offense...I meant that affectionately...please don't sue me for libel or slander or whatever satisfies your whininess).

Barbara, good luck with your finals. The place where I dropped you off is referred to as main campus, also known as the hilltop campus. That is as opposed to West Campus, the South 40, Small Group Housing (errr...the Village), the Loop, Kayak's, the Med School, BJC, and so forth. I'll explain Givens, Bixby, and the Lewis Center later...those people are their own bubbles.

Uh, maybe I should also define Wash U Bubble. This post is sort of dependant upon that. It's like the bubble boy from Seinfeld, where every once in a while we see strangers come into our world, but in day to day life the several thousand people who make up the Wash U community are an island that might as well be surrounded by the ocean as by Clayton, Fontbonne, and the city. Explaining Fontbonne would be a post in itself. As would explaining how a majority of Washington University in Saint Louis really isn't in Saint Louis. As would explaining why Wash U calls itself Washington University in Saint Louis.

Ok, enough of this, I'm going to make dinner. If only I still had some flexes for Center Court.