Not Everyone Can Excel in Self-Awareness

One thing I've mentioned before is that many of my kind of freshmen tend to be a little socially immature. An aspect of their social underdevelopment shows in their inability to self-censor.

Just today, after class, kids milling about to ask me questions I'd already given answers to:

A girl: Hey, you know what would be fun?
Me: What? (thinking she'd say something about holding class outside or at the library coffeeshop)
Girl: To try to straighten your hair sometime.
Me: Yeah, my hairdresser has tried that before. It doesn't look so good.
Girl: But you have AN AFRO! I mean, your hair is an AFRO!
(An African-American student, on his way out the door, looks at me and sort of rolls his eyes, like "She obviously doesn't know what a real Afro looks like")
Before I can respond, another girl, in my defense: But I loooove her curly red hair! I think it's so cute!
Back to Girl #1: But, straightening it would be something different.
Finally, I interject: I think I look like a boy when my hair is straight.
Girl #1: I don't think anyone would think you look like a boy when your hair is straight. I mean, your eyebrows are done up and you wear make-up.

It's a very strange thing to experience, people having a conversation about you, while standing right in front of you, and barely participating in it at all.

And if things couldn't get any weirder, they did at lunchtime, when I was standing in a very crowded cafeteria attempting to pay for my salad. The guy behind me brushes up against my backpack.

Guy: Oh, sorry, sorry about that. I wasn't pushing you forward of anything.
Me: It's OK.
Guy: Whose picture is on those buttons on your coat?
Me: Elvis.
Guy: Elvis!? I LOVE Elvis.
Me: Me too.
Guy: I've seen ALL the movies Elvis ever made! Like I saw the one about Hawaii, and the Western one, and the one about the jail, and the one where he's a motorcycle guy in the circus... (he describes a few others-- possibly not realizing that in every movie Elvis ever made, Elvis stars as Elvis, so they're really all the same) Which ones have you seen?
Me: I"ve seen a few-- GI Blues, Blue Hawaii, Girls Girls Girls... a few others...
Guy: I can sing just like Elvis.
Me: Oh, you can?
Guy (bending down nearer to my ear, he was a pretty tall fellow): Love me tender, love me true, never let me go...
Me: Good work.
Guy: I don't sound like him, but I love all of his songs.

This guy gives me his card in case I ever want him to come speak to my classes. He is an attorney. I'm not certain his Elvis impression will win him any clients, or inspire others to earn jurisdoctorates.

(And a moment ago, at my office, Kris Kristoffersen was on the radio. Barf.)