The Elephant Man

York St. John, in contrast with its larger and more distinguished neighbor, York University, is known as a party school. It's nominally Anglican, but that legacy is relegated to the theology department and the squat, grey, painfully modernist chapel which includes services for a variety of faiths. As far as I can tell, the classes are about as challenging as those I took in junior year of high school.

The students are friendly and loud in roughly equal proportions. The same could be said about Calvin students, but their loudness is separated from their lectures. There have been a few lectures now that I've almost walked out of because I couldn't hear every other word the tutor was saying over the lively debate about shoe shopping and weekend plans.

My Theology and Film lecture this morning was a perfect example. My tutor, a deaf man in his sixties, was talking about society's response to the disabled. This week's film was David Lynch's The Elephant Man. The students around me talked straight through a personal story about the isolating effects of his disability, which he didn't quite hear, because, obviously, he's deaf. Three weeks ago, this would have made me want to throw heavy objects around the room, but I've gotten used to these kind of (at the risk of being precious) Kafkaesque displays of ignorance.

Right or wrong, I decided not to go to the screening of The Elephant Man this afternoon. I have better things to do – like finish two novels for Monday and research and write an essay for Tuesday – than struggle to hear the dialogue over the sound of potato chips being eaten.