Did you know that San Diego State has ostriches?

Yes, as in the creatures known to bury their heads in the ground when frightened, thinking that because they can’t see anything around them, they can’t be seen either. Fun fact: Ostriches don’t actually bury their heads. They lay it flat on the ground.

I’m surprised that you’re surprised by this, because they’re everywhere on campus. It’s difficult to miss them, especially since their favorite places to hang out are in your classrooms and lecture halls. Maybe you’ve been having trouble spotting them because they don’t usually travel in flocks. They like to stay by themselves. It allows them to easily blend into the crowd. By the way, these ostriches go by another name 8212; texters.
Their identifying traits are the constant finger pecking they do on their devices known as cell phones and their distinct “clickety-clackety” mating call. Just like others in their genus, I’m assuming that they have the ability to lay big eggs, except theirs are intangible, in the form of Fs on their assignments.

Too busy to pay attention to the professor, they spend almost the entire class period distracting not only themselves, but the people around them as well.

There are many kinds of these campus ostriches. One type likes to hide behind another device, the laptop, to disguise its texting. During lecture, it pretends to look interested in the subject matter, even occasionally answering questions here and there.

This creates the illusion that since it has contributed and participated in the discussion, it’s all right for it to continue texting in class. Supposedly, the professor and everyone else will ignore what it is doing because it has already done its bit. So on it goes, hiding behind its laptop screen, which, by the way, is also hiding something else 8212; a Facebook, MySpace page or both.

Another particular kind of ostrich tends to text from the deep pockets of its bag or clothing. It will dive into its bag, pretending to search for a pen or a stick of gum, but instead, will single-handedly type a text on its phone. The same thing goes for the clothing ostrich, except unfortunately instead of hunching, it slouches in its seat, with the phone half-concealed in its pocket.

Then there’s the ignorant ostrich who does not give all the animal kingdom’s bottoms whether or not it is caught texting in class. This is the rudest and most inconsiderate kind of all. This ostrich blatantly texts on its desk without bothering to conceal its phone. When you throw it a disapproving glance, you’d think it’d get the clue, except it is impervious to hints.

It baffles me why they think they’re slick and stealthy. Don’t they realize that despite these attempts, their eyes still give them away? We tend to direct our focus on the object of another’s vision, so we can obviously see what’s going on. If you’re an ostrich reading this, that’s “I c wht ur doin” in your language.

And in case you’re the ignorant type, in my language that means, “Stop texting in class.”

8212; Kathryn Danganan is a communication senior.

8212;This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.