Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 14. 1966.

• Grind

• Grind

The library student par excellance, is the Grind. The Grind is the most hated type of all. and the most impervious to hatred. He reads for 10 hours a day during the week, reducing his application to four hours each on Saturday and Sunday. He always arrives in the library early enough in the morning to claim his seat of the day before. Then he engages in a ritual of setting-up. He places his books one on top of another, in the order that he will read them, with the exception of the last book on the day's list, which he uses as a prop to elevate the first. He ranges a collection of pens and pencils at the head of his pad. enough writing implements to last through the day if one should go defunct each hour.

The Grind then makes a final adjustment of his chair, straightens his pad. poises his pen and begins. Once his reading is started, his body never moves and his eyes never waver. He is never seen talking to a friend or taking a trip to the lavatory. You can keep time to his luncheon and evening tea breaks, for except for lectures, a quick meal is his only reason for quitting his chair. If you want to catch him in a human gesture, you must wait till late at night, just before closing time, when alone in the company of fellow Grinds, he has been known to remove a shoe and wiggle his toes. Once home and about to go to bed. the Grind will tuck his pyjama shirt inside his trousers and plan his schedule of reading for the morrow.