One thing I’ve noticed at school is the fancy new modern desks they’ve provided in the front of many of the classrooms.

My Saturday class meets in a teleconference room, so I was expecting the cameras, microphones, and video screens. But the get-up waiting for me tonight was another story.

Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I’m most comfortable with regular student desks lined up in nice, neat rows, facing a larger table near the chalkboard. This room was nothing like that.

First, the students had long, narrow tables, each with two chairs behind it. Okay, it’s nice that they have a little more room to spread out. But up front, there stood this cabinet with a tilted computer monitor sticking out of the top and no place to put my knees. It was about chest high, too tall to sit on from the front, and there was a swivel barstool on casters behind it, which I almost fell from about seven times.

What’s worse, this thing is fully wired and shoved all the way into the corner. Guess I’ll just walk around a lot this semester.