Three Hobart students slide in along the side of the room, push three desks flush against the wall, and sit down, leaning back and tossing lacrosse statistics back and forth through the air. Professor Chi-Chiang Huang unpcks his briefcase methodically, rolls up the white overhead screen and clears a small space on the blackboard. The Buddhism and Taoism class is large and fidget-prone. A guy in a tie-dyed shirt sporting a long, wooly ponytail scrounges a sheet of notebook paper from someone behind him. Subtle traces of cigarette smoke waft in from the open windows.
People cough and sniff, shuffle papers and postures, chew pens and fingernails.
Huang begins a calm, organized explanation of philosophic theory. Three Hobart students along the wall cross and uncross their legs, lean forward, sideways, and backward intermittently. One traces inky blue circles around the holes of his three-ring binder. The library contractors restart their motor with a gentle mechanical hum. His tone is completely flat, pausing for comment.