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Professor Pike jumped as he turned on me. I winced and let out a pathetic little, “Boo.” Upon recognizing me, he closed his eyes in relief and put his hand over his heart. He’d waltzed into his office and had not seen me sitting by the door until a few seconds later. Great first impression on the teacher, I scolded myself.

 

“Suh - sorry to scare you,” I said. He laughed and said that it was alright and asked what he could do for me.

 

Meeting with the professors for each of your classes is cliché because it’s just that good of an idea. Especially in big classes, you are just a name. If a professor can put a name with a face, any time that you are in a pickle (haha, or a BURNT pickle! Die, die, die, mutilated cucumber), they are much more willing to help you out. I’m a rather shy person, so this task already had me nearly wetting my pants before Professor Pike and I scared the buhjeepers out of each other. But none of my profs ate me for breakfast. In fact, as long as I emailed ahead of time to let them know when I was coming and had some semi-legit excuse for using up their time, I was welcomed into their offices. Even if your visit is just for five minutes, they have a much better chance of remembering you than if you had never gone.

 

Why do you want to be remembered? Recommendations, for one. Those get you into grad school and even get you scholarships, research opportunities, and exclusive on-campus events. Also, you might end up meeting someone who turns out to be a great friend. And, when you end up being a famous writer or curing cancer or whatnot, your professor wants to be able to brag about having “taken him under my wing.”

 

~*~

 

Its meow was quite pitiful. Callie put her hand over her heart to stop it breaking every time the black kitten let out a cry. We’d seen it earlier that day on our way to the Caf, and, when we brought back some lunchmeat for it, the kitten was gone. But now, here it was. And we were without the meat.

 

Malisa wondered if the chunks that we’d left by the tree were still there.  We looked, but they were gone. Hmm, we’d thrown the rest of the meat away in one of the trashcans. Callie, Malisa, and I looked at each other, shrugged, and yanked out the trashbag. We picked through the bag and between exclamations of “Ew! Gross…” commented among ourselves that this probably looked very suspicious. We found the wad of meat, split it between us, and advanced on the kitten.

 

Shannon sat on the brick wall and dropped little pieces of it by her feet. The kitten would dart up, grab a chunk, and then flee with its booty under a parked car. Malisa tried to throw it a piece of meat, but the chunk stuck to the side of a car, instead. I tried to supress my laughter in order to keep from scaring the kitten, but it came out anyway as a snort. 

 

Since that night, we’ve dubbed the cat Toni, a decent but androgynous name. We see it around campus some, and, apparently, it has a sibling that lives in the woods.

 

 

Emily Griswold is a freshman at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, though at the moment she is home on medical leave. She plans to major in neuroscience and minor in biochemistry and is taking microeconomics, general chemistry, chemistry lab, Greek archeology and art, creative writing, and voice lessons this semester. Please direct questions, comments, suggestions, and corny jokes for future column topics to her at marotiel[AT]yahoo.com.

 

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