In class again—just more dressed-up

So last week I was sitting at the back of the room of the conference that I had helped prepare for the entire previous week and as the clock was winding down to the last few minutes of the second day of the conference, I couldn’t help but intently people-watch with my fabulous view of the entire room.

I felt like I was back in one of my classes at GV—everyone was fidgeting at 10 to 5; at 5 to 5, you could hear the shuffle of half the people shoving their papers in their briefcases; and at 1 minute to 5, some people were getting up before the official closing statement of dismissal, the only difference was that they were leaving early to make it to their plane on time rather than to their next class that is way on the other side of campus.  Even before the closing speaker stepped down from the podium, you could tell people were mentally going over their agenda for the rest of the day.

Of course they were all glad to be there—numerous people even said aloud how pleased they were to be a part of the conference—but it was funny to find that, just as my colleagues and I go to class because we find it worthwhile and yet we have the habit of processing the rest of the day in our heads before the class is even over, so, too, does everyone else.

I guess college has been preparing me for the real-world in more ways than I thought.