"Schizophrenia"
...I assume that you ask because you wonder if it falls under the heading of Mood Disorder, like dysthimia--. …Well, yes, it does involve de- pression. You will come across it in your sug-gested readings as well as in your text, and it will be part of our discussion of Depressive Dis-order this week.”
“You mean there are seasons for feeling ‘bummed out’?” Nick slurred his inquisitive remark.
“Well, actually, Nick, the condition is more re-lated to the amount of sunlight available at dif-ferent times of the year. In the northern hemi-sphere, the winter months correlate with de-creased sunlight and hence we have use of the term seasonal.”
“You lost me, ‘Doc’,” Nick said, smiling.
“Well, as you will read later, seasonal af-fective disorder involves the onset of depressive episodes during winter months.
“I predict increased depression as we head toward final exams in December,” quipped Isaacs. The professor snorted a brief chuckle while the class laughed conservatively. “Your prediction in turn raises a classic philosophical question—” the professor rejoined, ‘Was it Lack of Sunlight—or of Preparation?’
Larry much admired how Dr. Norville seemed always to know how to amuse the class with a final “say,” and in addition avoid offending any-one.
As the students were filing out of the class-room, many still smiling their appreciation of the professor’s wit, Dr. Norville addressed Larry di-rectly. “Have you devised a plan yet for ‘inter-view slash observation’ of one of the city’s non-hospitalized mentally ill?” While Larry an-swered, the professor reached into his sport coat pocket and retrieved a small note pad. “I jotted down two inner-city shelter facilities not far from here, where you will be sure to find some number of individuals from whom to select.”
“Wow. Thank you, sir,” Larry exclaimed, tak-ing the sheet handed to him. “I actually located a person by just walking around downtown about a half mile from campus? He seems to display the symptoms of schizophrenia. But I was wondering how I was going to locate him reliably for further meetings. But I think you’ve just solved that problem.”
“Well, great. I admire your initiative in having already begun your project.” The professor had a way of conversing one-on-one with students that seemed to reflect his view that they were each on the same plane. To Larry, there was something almost spiritual about the way the professor related—as if he believed there exists an essential commonality among all people.
The campus library was packed with students by 2:30, when Larry’s last class on that Mon-day ended. Five minutes later he entered that facility to employ the services of its many re-sources for compiling scholarly references. So absorbed was Larry in his computer screen pur-suits that he barely noticed when the student working at the unit a few feet away stood to de-part the station. Typically, at the college, only a minute or less passed between successive stu-dents’ occupying a library work station, but within mere seconds someone was manipulat-ing the empty seat preparing it for use.
From a slight sidewise glance Larry glimpsed the blur of ten very attractively manicured fin-gers striking across multiple keys with aston-ishing speed and precision. The student paused occasionally to point and click and drag the page bar up and down the computer screen, but otherwise tapped out characters as if with a vengeance. Gradually, subtly, Larry turned his head to take in more of the owner of those hands, admiring the thin wrists elegantly adorn-ed with silver bracelets and the long, slender forearms. Noting the familiarity of the jewelry, Larry recalled, as his eyes took in more of the student, that he had seen the egg-shell blouse, the faint impression of the undergarment be-neath it, and the young woman whose delicate-ly rounded features it covered, in his 9:00 a.m. class.
As if drawn by an irresistible force, Larry turn-ed his head fully to gaze squarely upon the pinkish white face of Alexis Pringle. She angled her head slightly to accept his acknowledge-ment of her, engaging him with eyes partly cov-ered by the lids, her mouth configured in a very thin, sly smile, her overall expression appearing to communicate a score of cryptic messages all at once. Finding his voice, Larry sounded his friendliest greeting:
“Oh, hi. I didn’t realize it was you sitting there.” In response, Alexis simply broadened her enigmatic smile and turned back to work at the computer. After several seconds she spoke in a soft but deliberate voice.
“I saw that you ‘aced’ the midterm exam that Dr. Norville passed back to us this morning. You must be quite pleased.”
“Uhh, yeah. I’m sure I put in way too much time studying for it.” Alexis briefly shot him a duplicate glance of the earlier one. “Uhh. How did you do?” he inquired affecting the manner of a competent conversant. Alexis allowed a few seconds to elapse while her fingers flitted in graceful rapidity across the keyboard.
“I didn’t ‘ace’ it,” she said finally flashing him a smile even more abstruse than its predeces-sor. She then stood, gently pushed her chair in-to the bottom desk space, and retrieved her book-bag from where she’d laid it on the tiled floor.
“Bye,” she said, staring down at Larry, fixat-ing on him a full three seconds after he returned the farewell; she then departed to retrieve her ordered queue jobs. At that moment, Larry felt that he would give anything for the ability to beguile Alexis and leave her even a fraction as taken with him as he was with her.
When came the following Friday, Larry’s day went as usual in its progression to the evening hours. As it was now the first week of Novem-ber, darkness was starting to fall each week conspicuously earlier than in the previous one.
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