Things I Just Don't Understand about USF Culture

I'll never completely "get" why people act a certain way, wear certain clothing, speak in ways that would make simple minded cavemen feel like Rhodes scholars.

But there are things at USF that are so peculiar, things that shouldn't be difficult to understand but are, that make me feel like I'm walking around in a circus.

I've really only walked around one other major university's campus. Granted, it was on a weekend that I did it, but I was only nearly knocked over by someone on their bike or skateboard...well, I wasn't. I returned to USF this morning and I've already been nearly trampled by one person. As I write this from the fifth floor of the library, I'm becoming terrified to leave and go to class in an hour and a half for fear of having my legs pancaked by some other fat chick on a fixed gear bicycle. The longboarders/skateboarders to normal walking people ratio is also staggering. It's not enough that these assholes look like jerkoffs, but with each one that passes by you on the already over crowded sidewalk, you feel more and more inclined to do bodily harm to one of them and show no remorse in the process. I've begun to think these two types of idiots don't use this kind of transportation to make their journeys faster, I think they do it just to be dickheads. They want to fuck with people who choose to use their legs to get around.

This one's a stretch, but I'm calling it an example of culture because, like the bikers and skateboarders, the logic is so asinine that I have to think there's something else going on. Parking. I've said before that USF should offer a course on parking. I figured everyone would sign up thinking it'd be easy, and maybe in the process, two or three people would learn that they're supposed to aim between those two white lines painted on the ground. It looks intentional. It really does. What other explanation could there possibly be for people who park at a sixty degree angle to where they're supposed to look to park? It's not enough that there's such lousy parking here already, it's now become a way to complain about how little parking there is by taking up as many spots as possible, no matter how small your car is.

This one isn't really specific to USF, it's one that I've oft wondered about EVERYWHERE, but it does apply here as well, and that's school spirit. You wanna wear a shirt telling everyone what school's campus you're walking around on, far be it from me to question you. But when five out of ten people you pass by on the sidewalk are all identically dressed (I mean literally all wearing the same USF shirt rather than just a USF shirt), you're led to believe you're the last human amongst a sea of mannequins.

In fact, I think these mannequins are all in cahoots with one another. With nearly every last one of them also standing around promoting some fraternity or sorority event, I've become more and more convinced that USF isn't a university at all, it's one big sorority and fraternity. That may explain all the snickers at references to alcohol that come up in lectures in class. Well, better than I can explain any of what I just said.