Hearing something good
Eavesdropping on friends

After finishing our observation assignent, we were given the task of fine-tuning our listening skills. The task was simple. Find someone who seem to be talking about something interesting, and try to note what they were saying.

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There is a Spanish saying that eavesdroppers will never hear anything good about themselves. To find out if this was true, I went to the staircase area on the Greek campus. It is always over-crowded with people, so it must obviously be something very interesting they talk about, since they hang around there all day.

My casual cover was having the notebook ready, a cup of coffee, and a cigarette. Having found a free space, I tuned in on the surrounding voices. There were several conversations I was sure were about me, and they were probably quite juicy too. It would certainly have helped knowing Arabic, as it was the language in use. As I didn't, I had the choice of further speculating the contents, or start strolling the area in search for some English gossip. I chose the last. No Sir, this was not the international language day. A hard piece of information to swallow, but I had to move on.

The fountain area on the main campus looked much more fertile. Having bought a new cup of cover, I started my casual roam around the area. There is a limit, however, to how long you can walk around a fountain looking casual, so I chose a friend of mine who was in a serious discussion with a colleague.

- I always make people scared, my friend was saying; I show them the five axis of math, and ask them to use that to prove this - and they can't do it.

Noticing me, we exchanged hellos, and Pierre explained what they were talking about. We are revising for an exam tomorrow, he said. -The only time we revise is for the test tomorrow.

- Test tomorrow, test today, clarified Janni, the other part-time reviser. They resumed their discussion, and as I didn't want to seem too conspicuous I only wrote down key sentences. You know, said Pierre - they teach you integers, but they don't explain them until three or four years later. I know, Janni confirmed, - and if you don't accept the ground rules in the beginning, you will never understand it. It's a circle: In order to understand you must first accept not understanding. Concluding that they were amongst the lucky early acceptors of not understanding, they proceeded onto discussing the academic staff:

I like this [teacher], Pierre began, but I swear I would get more out of the class reading a book. He does not even know what field he is in. When I ask him if this or that area is within his field, he always responds by answering that it's roughly in his field. How can you be a professor without knowing if something is within your field or not, demanded Pierre. No, Janni had to agree that this was crazy. He said: Aiaa.

Reaching yet another conclusion, Pierre wanted to move on. - What shall we do now, he asked. We must do something deductive - how about a beer? - Not today, apologised Janni, I'm going to meet someone at two. Well, you only rent Stellas anyway, responded Pierre. How about you, he asked me - you're in for a beer? As being invited must be regarded as hearing something good about oneself, I had disproved the Spanish proverb, and consequently said yes.

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