We can only touch people standing at most two to three feel away from us, the reach of an arm, extending to the longest fingertip. Smell those at ten feet away, hear them across a few yards if they scream.  I’m young and my sight is strong, I could see a person across a field.  I can taste a person only when they’re pressed against me.

Our senses evolved as a mechanism of survival, defence.  Yet they can’t detect a microscopic virus nestled in a strangers lungs.  And when they warn us about strangers, or more often those we know, we suppress them with notions of misunderstandings and paranoia.  Our senses either can’t save us, or we refuse to let them. Maybe they just exist now to give us pleasure.  Surviving this long, maybe that’s all we can ask of them. Yet removed from all others, left alone and isolated, I can feel mine begin to atrophy.

End of term Professor assestments.

End of last lecture

Prof: “I’d appreciate it if you guys would hang around for a few minutes after you fill out these forms.”

I write down that while the class was interesting and he’s very knowledable, he was so unaccessable so often, with so many cancled office hours, and seemed so unfocused at times, it made the class a challenge.

Prof:  “All the reviews are in? Great. I just want to take a moment to thank you all.  This has been an increadibly trying term for me, in light of the emergency open heart surgery I had to undergo in the last weeks of winter break.  I’d just like to thank you all for your patience, understanding, and kindness.”

….Well now I feel like a massive shit of a person

No from Boston University

Yes from the University of Iowa

I’ll take it