Smart Asterisk

During the orientation, there were two classes I've handled all by myself that reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's drawing of an asshole, in the Breakfast of Champions, which looked so much like a giant asterisk.

I don't know why the asshole has become an analogy for a person's generosity or selfishness but there it is, the behavior of these two groups of students has brought to mind an asshole.

One group is a tight asshole, unable to produce anything, while the other group is a smart asshole giving but one has to figure out what it is that is given.

It's a sad fact that majority of students who come from public high schools have not had any library experience, so to make the orientation about the card catalog a little lively, we usually asked the students what authors and titles of books they know. Most groups give the standard authors they've encountered in high school: Shakespeare and Rizal and Harry Potter and Twilight.

Now when I was giving the orientation to this one group, not a squeak came out. I had to prod them and challenge them and nothing. Of course there was a student who gave an answer which he obviously got from his syllabus because it was the name of a freshmen psychology book author so I had to discount that answer. I wanted an author that they know, not an author that they know of, because surely Shakespeare and Rizal and other authors have been discussed and whose works (some of their works anyway) were read or discussed in high school.

The other group was a delight because no standard answers or authors were given. One student answered Charles Dickens, it was unexpected so praises were given (and it became the signal for the smart assess too.) I told the group that some Dickens are in the library. They'll just have to learn how to use the card catalog to find him and his works. Encouraged one student said Bob Hope, taken by surprise this time, I said I was not sure if the library has any Bob Hope but if they really are interested in him, they could just check the card catalog later.

Guffaws and catcalls and all sorts of noise. I would have been insulted but everyone had their eyes on one classmate.

"Me: well what's so funny about your classmate?"

"Them: his name is Bob Hope."

"Me: so you're calling him Bob Hope because he is funny? That's good! "

"Them: (Guffaws again) no, his name is Bob Pag-asa and we call him Bob Hope, you know hope equals pag-asa."

"Me: oh I thought you're all calling him Bob Hope because he is funny."

"Them: he is funny but his name is still Bob Pag-asa."

So there I was trying to calm the class down and at the same time trying to explain who Bob Hope was and trying to move the orientation along despite the occassional snickers.