“Save the trees!” “Nuke the whales!” “Join my cult!” Ahh… the sounds of the Breezeway.

How many of you have ever endured this maelstrom of activism? I have, and I’m sick of it. There have been too many times that I’ve been on my way to class by way of the Breezeway and been swarmed by groups too numerous to mention.

Yes, these groups do have a right to gather and speak, but those rights end where my right to walk begins. These organizations fill the often-crowded Breezeway, preventing many students from getting to class. Shouldering through this throng of pamphlet-thrusting do-gooders is often a daily struggle.

I came to FAU to learn, and that means getting to my classes.

But my aggravation at these groups is not only because they impede my progress through the Breezeway, they often invade my personal space as well. Several times last semester, I was sitting in or around the Breezeway when someone walked up and began preaching about some cause. Usually my response is, “I’m not interested,” “I gave already,” or “Please go back to your mother ship.”

This makes me appear rude or uncaring, but I’m not. There are causes that motivate me to speak out, it’s just that when I want to express an opinion, I don’t thrust pamphlets in peoples’ faces. I don’t have anything against what many of these groups stand for; I find fault with their means of delivering the message.

Swarming over students who are minding their own business does not increase interest in a cause, it just leads to a pamphlet-littered Breezeway. So the word is out: activists, let us students get to our classes; we pay to be aggravated by them, not you.