Drip... drip... drip... sluuurp!

Huh? Wha?

I discreetly wipe the little puddle of drool off the table and examine the situation: I'm in class, it's quarter after one, we're still on the same page as when I dozed off, and I managed to stay awake for about ten whole minutes this time.

The professor continued his lecture. "A functional dependency X->Y is trivial if Y is a subset of X."

Gee, that's swell. I punch a few keys on my calculator. 0, 7, 7, 3, 4. Look, I spelled "hello"! Wow, that was a good use of my time. I look at the clock again: 1:16. Ah, crap, can time move any slower? I stare at the face of the timepiece and will the hands to move faster. Tick, tick, tick, tick. I look at my wristwatch to compare. Tick, tick, tick, tick. I determine that the classroom clock is twenty-seven seconds behind. I concentrate on moving the clock with my mind. Tick, tick, tick, tick. I slap my watch to give it a head start. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Timex: Takes a licking and keeps on ticking! Tick, tick, tick, tick. Something startles me.

I think it actually went backwards.

I turn my attention elsewhere, and scan the classroom. Some quick addition and I determine that there are seven people sleeping, three people doodling, two people playing solitaire on their laptops, and one person doing something I'd rather not see again.

"A functional dependency g is logically implied by F, if whenever r satisfies F, r satisfies g." continues the prof, apparently unaware that only five people look like they're paying attention, and that includes the one person in the sunglasses leaning his head on his propped-up elbow in a very precarious position. I pride myself that I can still do arithmetic after years of being told that real math uses letters and little squiggly lines.

The professor continues, waving his pointer around at underlined words and little symbols with arrows pointing toward them. He thinks he's so smart, doesn't he? Standing there on his raised platform, blabbing on and on as if he's so wise and learned, thinking he's so much smarter than me. Hmmph. Well, I guess he's right, which is why he's up there, and I'm down here, but still - give us both hockey sticks and put us on a sheet of ice and we'll see who's left dazed and confused.

The person sitting next to me makes a comment about the professor. I ponder this a moment and pay attention.

"Y is a superkey of R if Y contains a key of R."

By golly, he's right! He sounds just like William Shatner! Only a little slimmer, slightly better dressed, and Oriental. But other than that it's a perfect match!

"F is a cover of G if the closure of F is equivalent to the closure of G."

Now I can't get the thought out of my head. Good ol' Captain Kirk is teaching us CS! Wow! That's amazing! Scotty, beam me out of here! Please! I look to the clock again. I refuse to admit that so little time has passed by.

I shift my seat and hear clinking. Ooo, I dropped a quarter, and it's another one of those commemorative quarters celebrating the new millenium. And another one from the next year also celebrating the new millenium, apparently because they weren't sure which year it started. Oh, and a third quarter celebrating the first time the Canadian mint issued commemorative coins. I wonder, if UW issued commemorative coins, what would they look like? I mention this idea to the person next to me, and we begin jotting down ideas.

In the background, the professor continues talking about natural forms, decomposition, and alerting the engineers that we need more power to the warp core.

Eventually, a stir fills the room. What was that? Something weird is going on. The ambient noise seemed to jump just a little bit higher; there's a certain electricity filling the room. Without looking at the clock, I instinctively know that the lecture hour is up. It's about time, too. I need a rest after all these lectures; I'm overworked.

Students begin packing their books and shifting chairs. The lecturer answers a student's question which I interpreted as something akin to "I'm a professor, not a machine", and then addresses the whole class.

"Any questions?"

I raise my hand.

"Um, yeah.... Can you repeat that?"