• Jitterbug

At this time of year, most of the students in the library are either Jitterbugs or Gleaners. The chance of finding both of these types at work rises in direct proportion to the coming of exams.

The Jitterbugs feel constantly lashed by the scourges of hope and fear. They read one book until they get so scared about how much they don't know that they quickly shift to another. The legs of the Jitterbug are always dancing, sometimes up and down, sometimes from side to side. A Jitterbug will frequently look up at the clock, which will tell him that his tutorial is sooner than he thought or that his reading rate is slower than It should be. The concrete library ceiling closes him in like a Bergman dream, where in a sudden spatial flip, he must make his laborious way along a footpath consisting of pits instead of squares, each one three feet deep. Paralysed by uncertainty, the Jitterbug will munch lifesavers and emit halting sighs. Every whisper and every little movement will distract him. At the end of the day. he feels he has accomplished nothing and he leaves the library with a tragic sense of his own doom.