Monday, June 23, 2008

Buying the book [narrative]

Today was an interesting day to say the least. I was signed up to get into the UWP course I needed to take becuase it was a requirement; a formality really, in order for me to graduate. I was very nervous becuase I wanted to get into the class, and get it out of the way. So after class today I decided to go buy the text book. I headed over to the bookstore hoping that it wouldn't be sold out, and sure enough when I got there it seemed like that was indeed the case. After some inquiring however, by some classmates and myself, one of the employees finally directed us to the books. I was relieved they were in stock, and especially that there were available used. Yet I was a bit disappointed in how rude the employees were. At the same time, however, I was somewhat understanding, becuase, lets face it, it's a new quarter and they are probably running around very stressed out. I opened the book and from the brief scan I have done of the text book I would say that I am intrigued by it at the very least. It is definitely a unique textbook, and I am curious to begin reading and getting into it.

2 comments:

Arisa said...

I agree with you, the employees at the bookstore were sort of rude. They did not really help me to find the books.

Christopher Schaberg said...

The ambient rudeness of the bookstore seems to be a recurring theme! Smail, you could do an interesting analysis of the relationship between 'formalities' and 'requirements'—how do we evaluate (or for that matter, *know*) the differences between these two concepts? Furthermore, it seems like the very idea of narrative plays into this: while narratives 'require' certain structure, the closer you look at any given narrative, the more you can see that the structure is in fact a fluid 'formality' of sorts. (I'm thinking of this in terms of college requirements and the narrative formalities of university systems.)