...controversial broccoli...

Tonight was the first lecture of Semiotic Anthropology and the introduction of one of those rare profs who is both brilliant and charismatic. And, although this is obviously irrelevent, very handsome. With a slight Spanish accent. There is absolutely nothing about this that is bad, with the exception of the fact that he's a married professor and so out of the bounds of fair play.

I couldn't help thinking about language and communication systems today, and the most basic tenet of semiotics which is that sign systems are not limited to language at all. It brought to mind the cliques of high school and certain signifiers of those cliques. Things as arbitrary as grey sweatpants tucked into Macgregor socks. Obviously those couldn't be the only signifier of a particular clique otherwise everyone would be a member - but yet it was integral to the classification. And it seemed to me that even those nonclique students who wore grey sweatpants were hesitant about how they did it. As if they didn't want to appear to be trying to get in; as if they knew they were trespassing. So the sweatpants in this case would be over the socks, and instead of tevas or flip flops, she would wear canvas shoes, maybe.

I want to go back to Thornhill and watch the kids for a semester. See if I am right about this - see to what extent nonverbal signs work to communicate status and social organization, and to what extent the students are consciously aware of it.