IEs are Wannabes

My title already rhymes...what more do you want from me?
And yet I feel obliged to indulge...and so I will rhyme "me" with "me."

Peggy and I have been taking this class with, well, a classload of industrial engineers. And as such, spectators in the ring, nay, the world, nay, the universe that is Indy, we have spectated and noticed a few things that I thought I'd share.

First, it's kind of fun being in a class full of people you don't know, because it's like being transported back to first year engsci when you really didn't know anyone's name and you kind of made up pet names for people based on how they talked, or what they wore, or who they hung out with, or the degree to which they were annoying. For instance...(and here you can guess who these people all were)..."Crazy Bitch," "The Man," "The Nodding Guy," "Ummmmm.....," "Big Blue Jacket," "I Love You Collins," Chinese Fob Guys I through XXII, "I Get It Guy" and "I Get It Guy Jr.," "The Guy-Who-Sonia-Gets-Chem-Labs-From-and-then-we-Copy," and more of course, I just can't seem to remember them all. To their credit, most (though I stress the nonexclusivity of the word "most") of these people turned out to be really nice, or really funny, or just plain good people. Anyways, I digress into the nostalgia.

Haha...fun times...good names.

Anyways, being in a new class full of people whose names we don't know allows us to do the same thing all over again -- and it's great! However, I'm starting to think that we've largely lost our creativity because we seem to be having trouble coming up with really good names. They all seem to be variations on "Stupid Girl" or "Annoying Guy" or "Guy who asks really dumb questions and always wants data that doesn't exist."

I'm not making any value judgements on industrial engineers or anything...but "Dumb Guy" keeps coming up.

Who am I kidding? We're making value judgements.

And in my defense, I've noticed that it's only in IE classes that they students have to remind themselves EVERY LECTURE that's they're actually engineers. Constantly. The professor always has to mention something about how what they're doing is "soft engineering" or enginering of soft systems, or systems engineering. Hey, the rest of the world doesn't think they're engineers, but at least they do.

And to be fair...I should have done indy too.

So maybe I'm just a bit jealous.

Except that...I'd be crucified in Indy for wearing sweatpants and a hoodie to class. And with my hair in a ponytail, well that's just unheard of. They'd probably have given me the name "Sloppy Girl" or "Ugly Girl."