Accents

Today I was sitting in an anthropology class, and everyone on one side of the room had some kind of accent. Some were British, some fake British, some Chinese, others were some kind of slight European lilt. When I was in college, I used to wonder why graduate students seemed so intentionally exotic, with funny accents, wearing unique shoes and some combination like hippie-chic-with-long-flowing-hair or jacket-with-cordoruy-elbow-patches.

Anyway, I was talking to someone about this yesterday and they pointed out that while people in my department don't dress too conspicuously, girls in gender and women's studies and latin american studies do have a pretty coherent look--and maybe it was because they had more women than men in those departments, and women tend to take fashion cues from each other while men probably don't.

But that still doesn't explain the accents.

Well, I guess maybe the accent's not really a choice; maybe it's just from not being from around here.