Library of The Ancients

All schools have libraries. Granted everybody reading this blog had to do research sometime before the advent of internet winning over homework (lucky next generation bastards!), we all spent some time in our libraries.

I'd like the time to recall and share with you my experiences with our highschool library. Why? I think if libraries were school kids, our library would be the one wearing a helmet and riding the short bus to school.

A normal library contains history. There, we can go search books and find details about the past. For our library, this is not necessary. Our library IS historical. You can open the encyclopedia and you'll find everything there is outdated. The pope isn't anybody you'd recognize, countries that no longer exist are still there (Kampuchea and Congo anyone?) It got so bad that my friend checked Mao Tse Tung on one encyclopedia and found his birthdate but not his date year. (i.e. He wasnt dead yet as of writing.) I looked at an Atlas and half expected the world to be dictated as flat.

So maybe it's just the books that are outdated. Wrong. I routinely check our Time Magazine racks for new issues. Last issue there is March 1991. (When I found that issue, it was 1999 already) And that was the latest issue. If you checked stuff there, you'd see a LOT of articles about the cold war. And not in the hindsight perspective. It's like you've been blasted on a rocket of retardation to the past.

I don't really know why they keep things that way, with a couple of new buildings sprouting at about the same time I visited that library, I'm certain budget's not a problem. The closest clue that I can think of is our librarian, who, for the love of everything edible is always eating in her seat (and this same person has the gall to scream at students who smuggle gum inside). If you see her table, it's always like a buffet of sorts. Eating and updating catalogues don't mix it seems, effectively freezing our library in time.

Despite this problem, we were actually forced to go to the library every week, with a 1 hour library period allocated just for, well, staying at the library. No goals, no objectives, just pure STFU-and-stay-there-to-pass subject (like Art Appreciation 101 in college).

So here are the things we actually did during library period:

- Talk about the latest series of VHS porn circulating the classroom. Either that or WWF wrestling.
- Eat gum/candy anything we've smuggled in or found stashed among the books (stored there by other students, probably)
- Play desktop RPG (pen and paper)
- Play snake on the classroom's 3210 (since everybody has access to it)
- Gamble using the random function of our calculators or page numbers of really think books.
- Do assignment for the next period.
- Make kodigo if there's an exam following the library period.

A classmate of mind had his ears pierced during library period. Me? I'd rather sleep.

Before I graduated though, the library was finally demolished. Chances are, the books are actually better (i.e. with correct info) in the new library. It's probably a lot more useful now. But then again, how the hell do you stash food inside book racks that people are actually using?

Boo.