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Early Tuesday morning, Brian Mepsis '12 was blindsided and beside himself-all due to the side of a building.
Shortly after Mepsis completed his carefully calculated hair flip and adopted an innocent gee-would-you-look-at-that-this-building-is-reflective facial expression in the window of the BioMed center, he turned his gaze to an engraving on the side of J. Walter Wilson.
"I pass by it all the time, but I'd never really noticed it before," he said. "'Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.' Malcolm Forbes."
"Yeah. I know," Mepsis told the Noser. "Whoa."
Derailed from his routine, the sophomore spent about eight minutes staring up at the quotation from the middle of Angell Street. Observers say he then stepped forward as if drawn by a powerful magnet to the engraving. "So true," they heard him murmur softly as he reached a quivering hand to touch the brick building. Mepsis wept.
He reportedly spent the next few hours standing in front of the building, nodding fiercely, and whispering to himself, "Things are gonna be different from now on." He broke eye contact with the quotation only to telephone his girlfriend, Elieza Caho '12, and terminate the relationship.
"He said he'd gone through some kind of defining, life-changing experience and I wouldn't understand," said Caho. "Which is ridiculous, because I've read Twilight. I know life-changing."
An inspired Mepsis marched straight to the Barus Building to change his major from Economics to Education. Once there, however, a plaque under a bench caught his eye.
"'A poem begins in delight and ends in only wisdom.' R-r-robert Frost," he sobbed. "I can't believe I never noticed it before. Finally someone says it! What we've all been thinking, but were too cowardly to put into words!"
Mepsis quickly marched back across campus to the English department building.
In addition to his appreciation for the quotations around campus, Mepsis also praised the banners that adorn construction sites. "'Building Brown.' It works on so many levels," he marvelled. "They're physically building, yes, but they're also figuratively constructing a newer, better Brown University. It's such clever wordplay. yet somehow deeply poignant in its simplicity. Every time I pass by I'm reminded of this institution's drive towards progress." He shook his head, awed. "I am rarely at class on time."
Indeed, Mepsis' love for the fine art of quotation has some negative consequences. Last semester he received Incompletes in four courses when he accidentally Facebook friend-ed a classmate with an extensive "Favorite Quotes" section.
Mepsis insists, however, that he does not have a problem. "I just avoid public parks and gardens. Also, I can't read books that start with an epigram or go into the bathroom at Tealuxe."
"Quotations are very powerful. After all, 'Words are the voice of the heart.' C-c-c-Confucius," he said, wiping his eyes.
