If you attend NDP, you have presumably been to the library. A place of literary perusing, database researching, and passive aggressive Post-It Notes?

I digress. The point is, if you are an NDP girl who has been to the library at least once during her years as a Blazer, you can relate to these experiences.

1. Avoiding other people in the section behind the bookshelves. We all do it. When you walk back to the cubicle area, your eyes immediately scan for a group that has no one in it. If that won’t do, you settle for sitting with your back towards the other person. You know it’s a bad day when you have to sit RIGHT NEXT TO another library goer.
2. Enduring the people lying on the beanbags. The moment you dread. When you finally have a cubicle seat all to yourself, you’re ready to focus, and then- you hear it. The thud of a backpack, the sound of a thousand tiny plastic balls being smashed against each other, the many repeats of this sound that are sure to follow- someone has decided to lie on the beanbag. Every minuscule movement she makes initiates an explosion of sound, and your study time is ruined.
3. Being the person lying on the beanbag. When you’re on the other side of the situation, all you want is to take a nap. And, if you’re not a senior with a couch in the Slounge on hand, the beanbags are, unfortunately, the next best option. You too, are conscious of the noise that emanates from your makeshift bed. But you are less concerned with the disturbance the noise creates for others than the disturbance it creates for your hopes of sleep.
4. Invoking the wrath of others while in a library classroom. We can’t help it. When you walk into a library classroom, you’re allowed to talk. So you do. You talk, and you talk loudly. Chances are, you end up on the floor in a fit of laughter, at which point a librarian opens the door and reminds you that the rooms are not soundproof. If this does not happen, fellow students might turn on you. Speaking from a personal experience, it’s perfectly plausible that another library classroom will put a Post-Note on the window asking you to kindly lower your volume. It’s also perfectly plausible that you reply with “No thanks, lol.”
5. Seeing out of the ordinary events occur. Whether it’s Mr. K playing his violin in a library classroom, someone using a straightener plugged into a wall socket, a bird flapping around, or a freshman printing 50 copies of a 25 slide PowerPoint, in color, something strange is always happening at the library; you just have to be looking for it.
6. Figuring out the new desks in the back of the library. I think the maintenance men replacing the lights in the library about summed up our confusion with this exchange I had the pleasure to overhear. “Craig, look, it’s a chair of some sort!” “Dude, don’t sit on it! It’s clearly not a chair!” “Lighten up, Craig.” In your partner’s defense, Craig, I too thought it was a chair of some sort when I saw it for the first time.

Whether it’s loud beanbags, funky desks, or not-fully soundproof classrooms, you can always count on the library for a few laughs.