Graffiti and campus communists

I think I've mentioned this wall before. It's possible I've even posted a crappy iPhone photo (much like this one!) of it before.

At least once a week, there is a spray painted message on this wall. Usually it's an anti-fascist sentiment, like "Fascists go home," or something of that nature. This one is a wish for "parasites" to leave universities. The messages often about some aspect of university life. You probably can't read the tag at the bottom right corner, but it's the name of some kind of student forum that often puts graffiti on this wall and on others.

And every time this happens there is someone out there the next day scrubbing the wall, or repainting it if that's what it takes. I really wonder why they don't cover this particular wall with the kind of paint that turns walls into chalkboards, or install a giant white board and just leave a bunch of markers. It occurs with ridiculous frequency, and apparently without consequence?

I'm not sure why this photo won't display in its correct orientation, but it says Babar three times, and it's a shot I took today of the place I was sitting in one of the largest lecture halls. As it turned out, I was waiting for a lecture that never happened, but that's another story.

Imagine that every place in an amphitheater designed for 400 has this much writing on the table. I guess that's what happens when you leave a lot of 18-year-olds mostly unsupervised over long periods of time with tables that aren't ink-resistent, but it's always kind of surprising to me. The amphis are in really horrible shape -- the paint is peeling off the wall in huge sheets. There are broken chairs. There is no heat, and the ceilings are ridiculously high, so that all the students sit huddled in their coats with their scarves and my fingers get so cold I can't write clearly. I realize that the university is basically free to attend, and therefore is probably somewhat strapped for cash. Still, it's definitely not what I'm used to.

I find myself really missing the trees on campus in Norman (or, really, trees in general -- there's a definite lack here), among other things.

The university itself, discounting the lack of maintenance issue, is fantastically unattractive. It's particularly surprising in light of how attractive everything in the city is. There's a lot of gravel and geometric shapes and bars and shades on windows. There's not much of anything that's attractive at all, really.

Politics are strange. This sign is posted in a courtyard seating area that's almost exactly like the one outside of Edison's snack bar, except with uglier seating and no landscaping.

Today, this sign was approximately twenty feet from the table that the Communist Student Association had set up and was trying to attract new members. There were several students reading the pamphlets and signing up for the newsletter, just across from a table of students who were preparing a petition to protest the expulsion of a foreign student who was discovered not to have appropriate papers. I'm not sure what they thought stopping the expulsion from school was going to do, since probably expulsion from the country is shortly to follow.

Anyway, things are different. Things are things. I am no longer surprised to walk in and find anti-fascist messages spray-painted all over the campus. I am no longer surprised to see swastikas plastered on poles in any context. I am no longer surprised by anti-capitalism messages, lack of organization, freezing classrooms, miscommunication, or my own growing apathy where academics are concerned, since being attentive and proactive seemingly only serves to make one frustrated.

For instance, I still haven't chosen all of my classes, or even found out where the ones I might choose are located. But I will figure it out eventually, I'm sure. And when it happens, there won't even be any consequences for having missed class.