Coming to You Live with a Battered Nose

The first cold front has finally arrived in Tallahassee. We cut our temperature nearly in half and I think that's a pretty decent fraction. But it is at this special time of the year that a peculiar natural phenomenon occurs on campuses around the nation. Let's let Marty Stouffer give us some commentary.

It is as this time, in the land of the American college campus, that a strange occurrence occurs among creatures known as greeks. Greeks tend to flock together in packs and live in burrows together by gender. Male greeks can be distinguished from their female counterparts by the absence of Vera Bradley handbags, giant sunglasses, and intense accessorizing. With the first sign of a fall chill, female greeks immediately develop similar neck and hand fur of bright colours. This is known as the Walmart $9.99 matching glove and scarf set. The female greeks don't seem to mind the fact that their winter fur develops when temperatures still hover in the 70's and sometimes 80's. Nature and evolution cannot explain it, however, scientific research is still being done to determine the reasoning for the female greek's strange behaviour.

Apparently even Wild America is not able to answer my question. I am probably the most cold natured person I know, and sometimes I am tempted to bring a hat and scarf to work with me to keep from going into shock in our office, but even I know that 65 degrees is too warm to be marching all over campus in furry boots and woolen mittens. However, it did provide me amusement as I trekked up Copeland this morning. I would have gladly stayed and watched the typical Floridan students (of which I am one) meander in their paradoxical attire of flip-flops and warm jackets to escape being the guinea pig of a cruel scientific experiment of which I was about to be a part.

In my oh-so-pointless-but-required-to-graduate Speech class I'm taking, we have a requirement to participate in some sort of research project and it gets counted as a test grade. Most of the ones my TA listed were communication experiments dealing with things like brain injury, speaking issues, and hearing problems, and healthy students could participate to provide the "normal" data. The one I signed up for dealt with vocal cords and I thought that would be easy enough. I have vocal chords. They work properly. Too properly, maybe... So how hard could it be, right?

I should have known when I went down my third flight of stairs into the bowels of the Diffenbaugh building that this was not going to turn out well for me. Experiments should never take place in basements of 200 year old edifices. Make a note of that. Anyway, I did not take my own advice and so, determined to get my 50 points, I cautiously made my way into a small, damp room where my TA stood with a certain device that I'm quite sure is used by the CIA for "convincing." It was a long wire about the thickness of a TV cord with a camera attached to the end.

"We're going to stick this down your nose into your throat to look at your vocal chords," my TA said. "It doesn't hurt at all; it's just kind of weird feeling." You've got to be kidding me.

Well, as that chord went through my nasal canal and made its way down my wind pipe I started to believe that my TA must equate "weird feeling" with "severe torture." I felt like a what a duffel bag must feel like when a football player's trying to stuff just one more shoe in it and it won't go. This went against everything my pediatrician taught me. (One time Chris stuck a tic-tac nose and Dr. Bonnell told us that we should never put anything in our nose, especially cinnamon tic-tacs. So much for "breathe friendly." I don't think Chris took a breath through his nose for weeks.) I thought for sure I would lose my nose and be forced, like Major Kovalyov, to wander the streets without it.

And then, the final blow. Seeing my face stained with tears, my TA said to me, "Just think of the extra credit you're going to get."

"Extra credit?" I said. "This is for my research grade."

"Oh," she said. "Weren't you here Friday? I told you all that we were having a researcher come to the class and you could count that as your research grade."

I wanted to tell her she could take that cord and...well, I have to keep this G-rated. If that camera had not still been in my throat I might have done something that I would have seriously regretted later. She asked me how it felt and I told her getting my nose pierced hurt less. How much extra credit did I receive for that lovely experiment? 5 measly points on a quiz grade. That comes out to 2/10 of a point on my final grade. I'd say I laughed to keep from crying, but as I was already crying, the chuckling would have just been overkill.

The moral of this story is threefold.

1) Do not zone out in class.
2) Do not participate in scientific experiments that take place in dungeons.
3) Never let anyone put anything larger than a hair in your nose. If it's larger than that, it obviously does not belong there.

Alright ladies! Let's all get out our matching scarf and hat sets! It's 68 degrees out!