“Quiet study only, Please!”

Staff Writer and Butlerite Nikki Shaner-Bradford is so grateful for all the friendly faces she sees on a regular basis from her Butler 8 cubicle! Here’s to all of you!

1. The various wrestling match/football game viewers. Thank you for always making me feel like I am the most productive person in Butler. If it weren’t for you, my second hour on Facebook would seem like a waste, but turning around to see you leaning your sweatshirt-clad body back like those mass-order grey Butler 8 desk chairs are leather recliners while you take in another segment of masculine violence in the name of sportsmanship really makes me feel good about myself. At least when we both walk out of here at 2am, I’ll know I made the most of my time judging my friends online rather than watching arbitrary muscle masses lunge at each other.
2. The couple whispering within my cubicle. You really restrained yourself this time by limiting your PDA to only a brief peck, and half an hour of hushed giggling. I’m so glad I got to share this five foot space with you while I finished my paper on Wordsworth’s poetry about the loneliness of death! You really helped me add some life to my description of my ongoing existential crisis. I hope the power of your love gave you the endurance to finish the CC essay you’ve been struggling with all day.
3. The guy pacing the hallway all night. Honestly, if it weren’t for you, I’d confuse the fluorescent light and glorious silence of Butler 8 with my own dorm room. Thank you for reminding me to have some self awareness. Because of you, I keep my halloween candy out of sight while I stress eat my way through the next problem set.
4. The Napper. I have the utmost respect for you, fellow Napper, passed out over your textbooks. Thank you for offering me quiet company in the late hours. We are one, you and I, and solidarity is a currency on the eighth floor.
5. The Roof Goer. You know who you are, you know what you did. I won’t rat you out to Public Safety in this very public forum. Thank you for making the floor a more exciting adventure for all of us.
6. The MIA Grad Student. Your book pile on the heater, your locked cabinet door. These are the things that leave me wondering late into the night. You are an enigma, a symbol of ambition and intellect. I am but a mere borrower of your desk. You are never here (I assume you are busy drinking black coffee and growing a beard while writing your dissertation in Hungarian) and this absence does not go unappreciated. Thank you, leftover books, for reminding me of your reader. And thank you, Grad Student, for relinquishing your post to me every night.