Laura Chanoux

Periodical Lack of Focus


You could compare my current class to the grocery bag that you find unexpectedly on your kitchen floor. With a grocery bag like that, you never know exactly what is inside. Sometimes you can open it up to find that it holds two pints of ice cream. Other times you can open it to discover canned vegetables.

This class was the canned vegetables. It had so much potential to be interesting. A can of vegetables is the same general size as a pint of ice cream. In a brown paper bag, it could be mistaken for something better than the creamed corn it actually was. With some effort, it could have been cookie dough! It could have been chocolate! It could have even been fat-free no sugar vanilla if it tried at all, but no. It was prepackaged string beans. Expired, no less.

Fifty minutes to go. I stared at the clock. I could practically hear the timepiece laughing at my misery. Forty-nine minutes.

I had a system for counting down until the end of classes. I perfected it within the first few months of freshman year. Fifty minutes could be divided into one period of twenty minutes and two periods of fifteen minutes. Or, if you prefer, it could be one period of thirty-five minutes and one period of fifteen minutes. Still another option was ten periods of five minutes. From there, forty-five minutes was three periods of fifteen minutes or nine periods of five minutes. Counting down with periods of minutes was much easier to deal with than simply counting minutes. It was also more uplifting. It’s easier to say, "Oh! I have three periods of fifteen minutes left until lunch!" than "Oh. I have forty-five minutes left."

Forty-five minutes until lunch. What had I brought for lunch? I think I had a sandwich and cookies of some sort. I wondered who was at my lunch that day. Was it too cold to eat outside? It was pretty sunny, so we could probably eat on the senior quad with all the underclassmen as usual.

I thought about my plans for that weekend. Most of the usual suspects (my close group of friends) would be around. Maybe we would all be able to get together Saturday night. I made a mental note to ask them. Sometime that weekend I had to get a present for my brother’s birthday. What’s a good present for a twenty-one year old guy? I wondered. Better question: what’s a good gift that I could legally buy? I tried to think logically. My brother lived in his own apartment (Light bulbs? Paper towels? Salad spinner?) at college. College... school... classes... wait, where was I? For two euphoric minutes I had forgotten that I was still in class.

Maybe I should be listening, I thought.

"So then the altitude of the..."

Then again, listening wasn’t that important. I copied down what was written on the board and assumed I would be able to make sense of it all later.

My seat in the room was well placed for my mindset. I sat in the row closest to the door in the very back. Being the farthest from the front, I could easily get away with daydreaming. Being so close to the door, I had a quick escape route for the end of the block. I could go from half-asleep to half way down the hall in two and a half seconds flat.

The only problem with my seat was the window. Not only was it all the way across the room, but the teacher always had the blinds down. I felt confined to a cement and plaster closet, my only connection to the world outside the rays of light that infiltrated the slats.

Without a window to gaze out of, my options for distraction were:

    1. the head of the girl in front of me (lovely hair, but not altogether interesting)
    2. the board (you must be kidding me)
    3. the posters hung around the room assuring me that this subject would make me                a better person (apparently the posters were very ambitious) or
    4. my notebook (now filled with designs, courtesy of my boredom).

Forty minutes remained. Forty minutes could be nicely divided into two periods of twenty minutes, or four periods of ten minutes, or even eight periods of five minutes.

I often wondered if methodically counting the minutes to the end of a class could be a sign of insanity. Either watching the clock or paying attention, something about this class would drive me insane.

The boy sitting next to me was vigorously taking notes. I glanced at his paper to see what I was missing, then realized he was only doing his homework for the next class. He did have a full thirty minutes left to do it in. He might as well use his time wisely.

Thirty minutes: easily divided into two periods of fifteen minutes, three periods of ten minutes, or six periods of five minutes.

My eyes began to lose focus as my lack of sleep began to gain control of my mind. No matter how early I went to bed, I always woke up tired. Personally I attributed it to having to rise before even the sun had sense to, but I guessed there was some sort of biological explanation. I blinked hard to keep my eyes open; I might not have been paying attention in class but I was not going to sleep. I had my limits. Open, I told myself, keep your eyes open! The teacher’s voice wove in and out of my sleepy train of thought. I tried to grab hold and pull myself out of the inviting whirlpool of dreams. Reaching into my bag, I snatched a piece of gum. Sugar might wake me up. It helped, luckily. I might have missed copying down the notes that I wasn’t listening to.

Twenty-five minutes: five periods of five minutes.

I wasn’t like this every day. Most of the time I listened attentively in class. In some classes I was disappointed when the bell rang and discussions were cut off. However, in others the bell was a welcome song of freedom, shouting my joy onto the quad and around the school. And if those other classes were combined with a cold, dark Friday, sitting through the block was like watching an instant replay. Everything that was happening was supposedly fast but it dragged by, caught in slow motion hell.

I found it disheartening how much time I spent in my own head, ignoring the world around me. If you think about it, there are seven hours in a school day, one hundred eighty days a school year. That’s one thousand, two hundred sixty hours. How many of those am I not paying attention? How many of those hours could I spend perfecting my shrine to Jimmy Fallon? I mean, really.

Twenty, twenty, twenty more minutes to go...

Twenty minutes: four periods of five minutes, two periods of ten minutes, or one period of twenty minutes. Twenty minutes was a reasonable period of time. Sitcoms are longer than twenty minutes.

Oh no. The teacher was passing around sheets of paper. Was this a pop quiz? Please be open note, please...! I silently begged, chills running through my veins as my stomach clenched. There is no fear like unannounced test fear.

I looked at the white page in front of me and let out a sigh, instantly calm. It was a diagram that matched the one on the board. No assembly or thought required. Wonderful.

Fifteen minutes: Three periods of five minutes or one period of fifteen minutes. Also an extremely manageable amount of time. One quarter of an hour.

I thought about the next time my sister was coming to visit, how much homework I had that weekend, how much homework I would actually have to do, and various ways I could become famous enough to host Saturday Night Live. The boy next to me packed up his history homework into a red binder.

"Do you know what problem we’re on?" he asked me.

"Not really," I responded truthfully.

He laughed and turned to pull out his homework for another class.

Five minutes: easily divided into five periods of one minute or one period of five minutes. Small amount of time, but always the slowest part of a block.

I watched the clock as it rounded the twelve and – what was this? – it stopped. The red second hand was stuck on the twelve and it wasn’t moving. You can’t keep me here, I almost yelled. I just wasted fifty minutes of my life listening to someone drone about nothing! At least have the decency to let me leave! After an undisclosed amount of time had passed, (how was I to know how much? The freaking clock had stopped!) the minute hand jumped forward as the second had resumed its constant circular motion. I relaxed in my seat. Time had continued its regular pace.

The bell rang. I was free.


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