Stiff Upper Lip

I was in a musty room in part of the Old Library - it lives up to its name because it's so amazingly hard to navigate that you'd expect to find a minotaur somewhere. In the Old Library is a special collection of popular culture, particularly from the Victorian era but also from the 20th century. But, for my class, Victorian London, we weren't interested in the Mickey Mouse statues.

So we were in this musty room with a bunch of ancient books, old book smell x40 - it was great - and this girl got up to leave because she felt dizzy. She walked out of a door. Then she fainted. Collapsed.

People looked up, one or two got up to help her (including the lecturer). Everyone else watched it happen, didn't really comment except for things like, "well, we shouldn't crowd her," and "would be best to stay seated." A duck might as well just have flown into the window and gotten the same response. It seemed like they were looking up from their books towards the event and asking, nonchalantly, "really? Did that really happen? Huh."

I was worrying about a medical emergency, I was worrying if EMTs would have to find their way through this senselessly ill-planned Old Library to find this girl before she got seriously hurt, which luckily wasn't the case at all - she's fine - and so I was baffled by everyone around me and their response. Not saying they're bad people or my response was right, but just if anyone every asks you the meaning of "stiff upper lip" THAT'S it.

I think someone even told me "stiff upper lip."