and to christen the new blue format (sorry, but brown with cutsy swirls and flower stamps was starting to feel way too Loius Vuitton) here's an example of the miscellany I get up to in my composition class two nights a week. This is a "description excercise" written collaboratively (read: through much shouting and eventual resignation) by me, an upper-middle class lit major whose every second word is Derrida, and a fourty-something mother of two who I make laugh by remembering obscure eighties song names.

I was in my usual spot by the window, second table from the milk-and-sugar bar. In one hand, I held my coffee – extra dry cappuccino with a sprinkle of brown sugar melting through the foam – and in the other an unlit cigarette. I twiddled it between my fingers, but knew I couldn’t light it here, not in this ultra-PC, yuppie, Canadian coffee shop. I leaned back in my chair, the black metal atrocity obviously mass-produced for its minimalist, nouveau dot com riche aesthetic, devoid of a single thought for the unfortunate sittee; but it matched very well with the metal-bottomed glass tables that threatened to topple over with one poorly placed latte. Another poor sap walked through the doors and joined the lineup of misguided, post-hip, MEC-clothed clones, the whole crowd of them smelling like a wet dog on a bus – the inevitable result of that much damp Gortex™ in one room. Behind the counter one of the black and green clad, ever-smiling, customer’s-always-right-but-I-secretly-loathe-them-all-anyway baristas leaned forward scribbling orders in coffee-ese: half-fat, no foam, soy because-it’s-all-I-can-drink-on-this-damned-Atkin’s-diet mocha; zen-jasmine green tea with all-natural rock sugar, and so on.

The glass door swung open. In walked Trent, my favourite person, his usual dissatisfied, aloof smirk pasted across his face as if he thought a Rolling Stone photographer might jump out and snap his picture at any moment. I looked away hoping he wouldn’t notice me until after he ordered so I wouldn’t have to suffer through hearing him order the allegedly-coffee-based atrocity he always drank. Caramel latte with extra whip. As if lattes weren’t bad enough to begin with, and he had to cover his with candy like a frickin’ apple at a county fair. Just thinking about it made me groan, and he looked over. Damn. I’d blown my cover.

See, school is occasionally nothing but silliness. Although now I have to go peer review one of my classmates essay. What the crap kind of assignment is that?