An Unimportant Announcement

Last week or so, I attended a meeting for my graduate program that was intended to be half social, half informative. During the informative part, I began to fidget. (I tend to do this when I'm listening to someone and it's hard for me to control.) Anyway, in my private fidgeting, I accidentally kicked the foot of the girl sitting next to me. We both immediately whispered a "Sorry" to one another, me hoping that she wouldn't realize she had no reason to be sorry herself, when the chairman of the department looked over at us and asked if I had a question. To be fair, he wasn't asking in one of those snide ways that teachers do when they know you're not paying attention. This was the part of the meeting where he really wanted to know students' concerns. When I tried saying that it was nothing, that there was no question, he pushed forward, trying to show everyone just how concerned he is with the program. Realizing that he wasn't going to let us off the hook, I finally just admitted to the entire room,

"We bumped feet."


This was when I regretted an earlier decision for all of us to sit in a circle so that everyone was facing everyone else. Nothing makes you feel more professional than telling all of your academic peers (and some professors!) that you cannot sit still during a 30 minute meeting. Next time I might try to come up with something a little more extreme to liven things up.