Yesterday in Property class, the professor told us that people had been asking if we could move from our assigned seats and spread out a bit so we have more room -- some people feel cramped by the small desks (can't fit laptop plus textbook without infringing on our neighbor's space... or as we might one day say in property class, if we were the kind of people who made relatively un-amusing comments trying to tie the law into all aspecs of everyday life, crossing the property line between ourselves and our neighbors) and the room has a bunch of empty rows in the back. So he told us that we could all choose new seats in class today.

Unfortunately for people who were hoping to get a super-amusing weblog post out of this event, it was a fairly calm process. No fistfights over any particular seats, nobody visibly upset that they had carefully placed themselves in a seat and then their arch-enemy came and sat down right next to them. It sounds fairly pathetic to say, but I actually set my alarm for 10 minutes earlier tha usual so I would get to class a bit early to make sure I got a good seat and wasn't stuck right behind a compulsive solitaire player, next to a compulsive talker, or directly in front of a compulsive projectile vomiter (or is it vomitor?). I also actually spent a non-negligible amount of time considering my options -- taking into account that the professor calls on people based on seating location: the right side is at risk of cold-calling on Wednesdays, the center on Thursdays, and the left on Fridays. Wednesday's class is 20 minutes shorter than the other 2, so that was a plus for the left side. However, the center is much larger, so the chances of each individual getting called on are quite a bit smaller.

Balancing those two factors -- along with my preference to be off to the side (it's easier to see without other people's heads and laptops getting in the way, especially since the professor tends to walk from side to side quite a bit), I chose the right side, 3 rows back, 1 seat in from the aisle. I also made sure to take into account the potential pre-class conversation with those around me, and tried to pick a region of the room where other people I'm friendly with were sitting.

...and my mother says I think too much about the little stuff... :)