A hush fell over the Pontianak Catholic College (PCC)’s fourth semester class as their linguistics lecturer, Mr Mulyadi, entered the room. Of all their lecturers, Mr Mulyadi was reputed to be the most exacting. His cool gaze passed over the students, arranged as they always were in several rows with a corridor in the centre of the room splitting the class in two. After a beat, he sighed and asked, “Why do you always sit in these same seats? It’s been this way since your first semester”. Silence filled the room as none dared answer. Finally, Mr Mulyadi announced “I’m sick of it, from now on you’ll sit in assigned seats”, before allocating each student a new seat in the classroom in which they were instructed to sit for the remainder of the semester. The students of course acquiesced to his demand, at least for the remainder of the class. However, after class ended, students stood up and returned to their original seats, restoring their self-devised seating arrangement for their remaining classes.