No, see, I never do that kind of thing. I hate getting to know people in my class, and I'm usually smarter than they are, anyway. I'm serious. It's not a snob thing, or at least, okay, it's a snob thing but I really do know so much more most of the time that studying with someone else is more like me being a tutor, and who has time for that unless you're getting paid? So I avoid forming classroom alliances.

I don't keep myself aloof in terms of saying hello when arriving at or leaving class, and god knows everyone knows who I am. I'm the articulate woman who sits up front and isn't shy about giving answers but I'm not a big answer hog, I don't annoy people. The others have plenty of opportunity to give answers or opinions. They don't, most of the time. I'm afraid a lot of my fellow students are either not studying or feel overwhelmed by the professor's super-caffeinated overdrive method of teaching because I feel like I do speak more often than anyone else. The trouble is I'm studying my watusi off and I'm still overwhelmed by the huge amount of information we're expected to know. I have some sort of internal resistance to memorizing the names and dates of various governers, missionaries, explorers, and settlers of Spanish California; I just cannot remember them. I'm all, "Cortes, uh, Junipero Serra, uh, some guy with a million streets around here named after him, some guy who got killed, and the other answer is probably acorns". I'm more or less clear on California history after 1850. It's the early stuff that's eluding me.

So we had another quiz tonight, and the weird thing is our prof said he was going to let us have half an hour to do it, and he was going downstairs to his office. Clearly, he expected us to use our books, notes, handouts and each other as he said, "You guys need the points!" Everyone went all quiet and unbelieving as he walked out, then exploded in a flurry of papers, comments, flapping of books, and begging for the answer to number seventeen.

The people around me, figuring I had so many right answers in class I must actually have read the material, kept asking me questions. It was actually pretty cool. I knew about Manila galleons, shamans, Cabrillo, and San Bernardino (the largest of the 58 California counties, thank you very much, two points right there). The girl behind me found all the governers, the woman next to me looked up explorers, no one knew what the heck a temescal was, but we figured it out.

"Are you sure it's de Anza and not Alvarado? They're both Juan Bautistas."

"Please tell me eight is Indios."

"Goddamn it, how do you spell Mediterranean?"

Three of us walked downstairs to the professor's office chattering away about how hard he was, what we got on the last test, and how we all expected to die on Big Important Test #2 in two weeks. Ro was trying to get her ethnic history requirement out of the way. Allegra needed at least a B to keep her grade point up so she could transfer to Berkeley. I, of course, just want to graduate.

"Listen," I said after we'd dropped our papers off, "I can hardly believe I'm suggesting this, but do you guys want to form a study group? At least divvy up the work and pass around the answers? Because I totally fear that 100+ list of names and phrases he put on the study guide. I so did not know any of those names tonight."

They were enthusiastic. We exchanged phone numbers and emails. We divided up the list and promised to have at least half of it done by the weekend ready to email out. It means I don't have to research it all, just memorize it all which will be bad enough. I am pretty sure they're going to hold up their end of the bargain. Everyone kind of bonded over the open book test and I'm sure the professor knew that would happen. He's a smart cookie. Plus this might be the only A some of those kids get.

I have classmate buddies now. Every semester surprises me with what I'm capable of achieving. I'm going to miss that part when I'm all done.

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