cacti

Another of the little quirks of living here is that people love cacti. They’re everywhere, but especially in computer labs. They’re all over computer labs. They’re on the floor, on the desks, on the mousepads, etc, dozens of top-heavy little cacti in flimsy plastic containers, loving life and growing at amazing rates. They are a bit of a problem for me, since I don’t look at the mousepad when I use the mouse, and I usually come away with little red spots all over my right hand. I can move the cactus from the mousepad, but I may not put it on the CPU, I have to get up and put it on the window, then replace it when I’m done. Nothing may be put on the CPU, I’m not sure why, I think people think they’ll crumple or something. There is, of course, method in this, but we have yet to discover exactly why cacti must be near computers. I asked some of the students and they said that it’s because when your eyes get tired of looking at the screen, you should look at a living plant for a while (but why a cactus? I’d think a bonsai or something.) Someone else said that cacti absorb radiation from the computers, which is more likely to be the real explanation. Relatively few of my students knew that cacti aren’t native to Kazakhstan. I guess they thought that they grew out there on the Kara Kum, with the black and white and brown camels.