The lecture

Olga Brajnović

12 years ago

Tell us about a time when you felt out-of-place.

I was a student at the Journalism school. My best friend had a brother who was a historian. He had scheduled an important lecture about Spanish contemporary history and we were looking forward to attend. I was, I am a little absentminded and I forgot the day and hour. So when she asked me:”Are you coming to the lecture?” I said: “Of course”, and followed her.

First thing that surprised me was that she lead me out of our building

-“Quick, we are late”, she told me

-“Where are we going?”

-“Are you coming or not?”

We began to run from our building through the campus and I saw in surprise that we were approaching the Theology school building.

She entered the building with a lot of confidence and I followed her asking to myself why a lecture about Spanish contemporary history was going to take place in the Theology school.

When we arrived the lecture had already begun. She opened the door of the room and I discovered I was in the wrong place. The lecturer wasn’t my friend’s brother but a known philosopher. And the audience all priests, wearing clerical clothes. All in black. And I was wearing a red sweater and jeans. The room fas full and there were only a few empty seats on the first row. My friend advanced confidently and I followed her feeling completely out-of-place. The only red spot in a completely black clothed audience.

Once there I tried to focus in what the lecturer was saying. It was some high specialised philosophy unreachable to me. To complete my embarrassment the speaker was my father’s friend and noticed me immediately. At some point he even made a philosophical joke because everybody laughed. It was all Greek to me. Because I was in the first row I tried to seem interested but the truth was I didn’t understand a thing in 45 minutes there listening intently.

When the lecture finished I fled as fast as I could to avoid my father’s friend. I felt everybody’s eyes following me in my red sweater exiting the clerical environment.

Later my friend explained to me that she had seen that day that the philosopher she admired had a lecture and decided to invite me. To my relief she confess it was too difficult for her to understand, and she was better than me at philosophy. At least I wasn’t so stupid as I was feeling at that moment.

Daily Prompt: Land of Confusion.
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