Blog #8: Meet Bryan

The ten minutes before my poetry class starts is the best part of my Monday. The entire class is united against the professor that must not be named, and so we spend the couple minutes before he arrives complaining, making grandiose claims about standing up to him, but mostly just reveling in our united cause. Funny thing is that I don't know any of these people outside of this class one bit, and some I even have trouble remembering names for. It's strange to me that sometimes the people that are really strangers to me are the ones I see every day.

The only boy in the class sits next to me, on the left side of the small classroom. His name is Bryan and all that I know about him, past the unruly ginger mop on his head, is that he comes after me on the attendance sheet.

"Hey, uh, Bryan?" I inquire, fumbling with my iPhone in my pocket. "Do you mind if I interview you for my creative nonfiction class? It's just... I have to interview a stranger and I don't know you so you're basically a stranger..." Great, I'm rambling, I think, but he's already nodding, open to the intrusion. Relieved, I pull the phone all the way out, switching to the camera act.

"I have to take a picture... so... yeah. I'm gonna take an awkward picture of you now." He laughs a little at my awkwardness and I pull out a pen. "So... what's your name?" I raise an eyebrow at myself and he smirks back in understanding. The girl on the other side of me is calculating the possible date for the late midterm- we're almost three weeks behind on the syllabus.

"Bryan with a y, Davis. Bryan Davis." It was good that he pointed out the y. I'd been mentally spelling his name "Brian" because I liked the idea that Brian and Brianna were sitting next to each other. Ah, c'est la vie.

"And what's your major?" I realized at this moment how completely unprepared I was for this interview.

"English lit." He rests his hands on his decomposition book (the environmental equivalent of the composition book, I assume) patiently.

"Cool, cool..." I mutter, writing it down. The girls next to me look over at us, curious. "What do you want to do with that?"

He smiles, almost sheepishly. "I want to teach high school."

I stop writing and raise my eyebrow at him and chuckle, remembering my own reasons for not ever wanting to be a teacher, especially in high school. "Brave. So do you have to go to, like, teacher's school after this?" I pause to mull over my phrasing. "Teacher's school? Did that just come out?"

He laughs again, and nods. "Yeah, a couple years of teacher's school."

I make a forgettable comment to the girl next to me about their midterm reschedule conjecture and then another thought occurs to me. "Why high school?" I ask Bryan, still patiently giving me his full attention.

He shrugs with a thoughtful look. "Just from my own personal experience, I had a lot of great teachers back then and I want to do that too." We make eye contact for a moment, not because we're seeing something in each other, but because we're sharing a trip down memory lane, thinking about all the great high school lit teachers we've had. It only lasts a couple seconds, but I'm glad I interviewed Bryan. He's comfortable with the same kind of quiet reflection that I am, content with silence. I decide that I like Bryan, and hope we have a class together in the future, if only to commiserate about professors that will probably never inspire a love of teaching.