I was sitting in my spot in our Songcraft lab, finished with all my work, with nothing to do. So, I do the two normal things that I'd do. I whip out my iPod with these crazy nice headphones that Full Sail gave me (
These Sennheiser ones!) along with my phone, and I'd have myself a classic introverted good time!
Halfway into the first Sufjan song, a lab instructor walks up to me, and just shakes his head (you can't hear anything in these headphones). So I take the headphones off and look at him. He says, "You can't use that in here." So I reluctantly put the phone in my pocket (I was also mid-text to my beautiful girlfriend), and unplug the iPod and toss it on my backpack. I lean back in my seat to wait out the last 15 min of the lab in silence. I haven't waited an entire second before the lab instructor is talking to me again.
"Oh, you can use the music device," he tells me.
"Huh?"
"You just can't use the cell phone in here."
And I happily reach down and grab the iPod. I lean back in my chair again, but before I start the music, I sit and think about what was just said to me. He told me that I can listen to music because after all, this is a music school, right? It was then I realized that music receives a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card here. Because there is nothing different between me listening to music, and me texting, in class. If I'm listening to music, I can't hear anything else, I will probably just look at my desk or around the room, and I will be unresponsive to pretty much anyone. If I'm just texting, I am sitting at the desk, looking down, and able to respond to anything that is happening around the room, like if an announcement is made (unlikely though). In both scenarios I am just sitting, making no noise. They sound identical to me, if not worse on the side of music. You see where I've been going with this?
So I eventually put on the headphones and continue down the yellow brick road of Sufjan Stevens, but I still can't get it out of my head. Because the only difference became what my hands were doing! I was sitting and listening to music, and I could have been sitting and listening to music, while I press some buttons on the phone. I would have been doing nothing worse. I wonder if he would have stopped me from twiddling my thumbs, because that's about all I'd be doing with the phone.
It's a stupid lab anyway. Tedious and lame. Haha
So take THAT, lab instructor guy.
