Regrettably, That Kid receives the annoying-student baton and sprints by all of the foot-tapping, bubble-gum popping, AIM-chatting, Internet-shopping competition. He is the IHUM Kid’s evil twin brother — twice as outspoken and four times as obnoxious, and he populates every one of your classes, humanities and otherwise. That Kid isn’t just the student that sits in the front and consistently raises his hand, arm stick-straight, fingers wiggling like worms with ADD. That was IHUM Kid, a mere oddly-shaped, benign mole compared to That Kid’s cancerous melanoma.

In large lecture halls, That Kid is the one who asks questions that don’t help clarify anything and instead pertain to material that the professor has explicitly stated will not be on the final. Her inquiries are generally far beyond the scope of lecture, and she almost always draws comparisons to other classes she has taken or is taking concurrently. Sometimes she even likes to describe real-life personal experiences which, luckily, relate to the subject of the lecture. Just as she learned in her other developmental psychology class, young twins (exactly like the ones she happens to baby-sit regularly) display the same cognitive deficiencies which surprisingly resulted in me stapling her mouth shut.

In small seminars, That Kid offers gems of analysis five times more than anyone else, including the professor. His answers are invariably too long and always contain massive vocabulary words. I can’t help but roll my eyes, completely annoyed at his pitiable and see-through attempts to cultivate an iota of self-confidence by parading his barely above-average lexicon. Although sometimes, I write down the words I don’t know and look them up at home.

The most insufferable thing about That Kid, that is besides her nasally voice, all-too rich vocabulary, eager finger-wiggling and should-be-asked-in-office-hours questions, is her ambiguous motivations. That Kid speaks both to impress the teacher and to satisfy her own bottomless personal quest for knowledge — she is a maddeningly odd blend of proud self-congratulation and genuine academic interest. I hate her for her unbelievably poor lecture etiquette, yet I admire how unswervingly prepared for class she is, regardless of a heavy reading load or complicated problem sets. This scholastic respect only fuels my hatred, however, since when pitted head-to-head against Geeky McI-don’t-understand-social-cues, I know she will win the Better Student Award every time.

Sometimes I imagine That Kid in ten, or even five years, and I start to mentally drown in a frothy bitter pit of despair. Because he raised his hand so freely and was so joyously involved in every discussion section, optional class, and office hour, eighty-five tenured, emeritus Stanford professors not only knew That Kid, but had him babysitting their children and proofreading their latest publications for petty grammar mistakes and scholarly vocabulary insertion. Their relationship, further bolstered by their mutual passion for Proust and their perusal of rare book fairs to discover and purchase other such gems of early 20th century modernist literature, in turn leads to the most staggeringly praiseful recommendation letter that the world has ever known, where That Kid is actually compared to Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Paul Farmer and Bono in a few letters of note. These deep connections to the zenith of America’s intelligencia, lands That Kid not only an internship that is more selective than candidature for the Papacy, but also a six-digit dream job “consulting” for an “environmentally conscious” company that donates millions annually to AIDS research, offers complementary meals and massages and urges employees to sit on big green bouncy balls instead of office rolly-chairs to increase core strength and foster a healthy, ergonomic work space. That Kid actually then becomes your dad’s boss, and you have never felt more strongly than now that Denis Quaid deserved an Oscar nod for his poignant role in the film “In Good Company.” Perhaps a little embarrassment in front of a lecture hall of 300 people is worth it.

Then again, however, That Kid isn’t perfect. She shows up to a board meeting, so your father tells you, and while she bobs up and down on her green bouncy ball, she interrupts, side-tracks the meeting and tells personal stories which are only marginally related to the topic at hand. Once, at another board meeting, she heard a similar theme discussed and there they all shared their personal goals which resulted in, quite surprisingly, your father binder-clipping her lips together. Eyes roll, and pens begin to tap — her group manners are as off-putting as always.

Perhaps we should all take a few cues from each other. I could raise my hand more, That Kid could leave the library on a Friday night (there’s a reason Green closes so early). I could visit office hours occasionally, That Kid could work on fostering an interaction with the opposite sex outside of Beginning Social Dance. After all, that is what diversity is about, learning from those who are different from ourselves. And who knows, maybe That Kid and IHUM Kid could start a beautiful life together.

Sorry, That Kid. E-mail Katie with your well-worded responses at kttaylor@stanford.edu.