Some background on me, I am 30 years old going to college after serving in the Army. Once you read the article you should be able to understand why I am unable to ask my college professor her opinion. Pros/cons let me have it! I seriously want an opinion from someone besides my mother!
Over the past couple weeks I have indulged on a few of the characters in my English class, primarily the ones who I’m flirting with. The truth is the whole class is full of oddly unique individuals. I know what you’re thinking; everyone is unique and special in their own way. Which may be true, but these jokers make Keith Fletcher look sane.
One guy looks to be about 300 pounds and I swear is the spitting image of Peter Griffin from The Family Guy. He has that “one-up” personality that you occasionally run into and have no choice but to call bullshit on everything that comes out of their mouth. No matter what you say, they always are just one step better. You tell them about how you bowled a perfect game of 300 over the weekend, a person with a “one-up” personality will tell you how they got a 301 or higher score. They just one-upped you!
This Peter Griffon wanna-be came in the first day of class and started telling people on how he has 15 children. The man looks to be in his late 30’s, maybe early 40’s, but 15 kids? I suppose it was plausible, but he kept talking. He is only 9 years older than his oldest child. Got the girl pregnant when he was 8. Sex was nothing new to him because he was raped at 5 years old. The father of the girl he got pregnant refused to let him see the child so he dug a tunnel under the backyard and into the house, which only took him a week to complete, at 9 years old.
I suppose that he knew how to build supports and everything too so the tunnel wouldn’t collapse and the dirt he displaced was never noticed by the girl’s father. I should have asked him that anyway, but I asked a more logical question.
“Do you smoke crack”?
Hoping that he would feel slightly insulted and take a second to stop and think about what he is saying, he unexpectedly responds with “Yes”.
I’m shocked, he said “Yes”. How do you respond to something that answers like that? Apparently you just keep listening because you just gave him a new topic to talk about.
“I had a friend show up once with the little white rock he bought for $20 that was about this big” makes a circle with his fingers about the size of a small marble.
“I wanted to see what the big deal was, so I smoked it. I shaved off a little, and smoked it, then shaved off some more and smoked it. Nothing happened though, I just kept smoking it.” At this point I am just staring at him, thinking to myself that “he can’t seriously think we believe any of this”.
He continues “We only smoked half though cause my buddy bought it so we could re-sell it, I still don’t see what the big deal is.”
I take a second to blink, “You were going to try and turn a profit on $10, worth of drugs?”
God! I know he is lying, why do I keep talking to him?!?!!
“Well, my buddy knew this guy who would buy it for $100″ teacher interrupts “OK class let’s get started”.
Thank god! I was afraid my brain was about to explode from the amount of bullshit polluting it.
I turn my attention to the professor. This is English 116 and 118 combined. Both are the pre-requisite to English 122, which is the only English requirement to satisfy the requirements for transferring to a 4 year school. I would think that this is a college level course, except with the way the teacher behaves I have this overwhelming urge to pull out my crayons and coloring book.
I am a geek and love my computer. This is no secret to a lot of people. However, one of the best things I love about it is my spell checker. If a program doesn’t have a spell check, it better be awesome, or I won’t use it. Maybe this teacher is the same way? She did bring in her Macbook one day, the only thing so far that impressed me. Every single thing she writes on the board is either illegible or obviously misspelled.
I am not one of those “Grammar Nazi’s” that go rummaging around random forums or blogs, to make an account just so I can reply only once, and tear apart someone else’s comment or post. As long as I get the general idea and I can tell the guy isn’t a complete idiot I leave well enough alone. If I don’t like what he says I attack that. Grammar and spelling? I could care less most of the time, but if you’re an English professor at a college, teaching a college level class…. maybe, possibly… I don’t want to go all holocaustic here, but shouldn’t that person be a little better at English?
I regain my sanity by passing notes to the cute 19 year old girl sitting next to me. I learn that I am not alone feeling this way about the class.
Later on the teacher hands out some Xeroxed pages to a book she came across. I would think that’s illegal without the copyrighter’s permission, but probably not a good topic to bring up in class. After reading it she asks everyone opinion. I, being the good participator that I am, raise my hand. After she engages in a random though and then repeats it 20 times, my arm is starting to feel like a cinder block.
She finally asks me to give my opinion, my hand comes crashing down to the desk making a loud thud, possibly breaking a finger or two, it’s hard to tell due to the lack of blood in my arm has made it completely numb.
I mention that the article contradicts itself. Citing that in paragraph two the author is against it, and then in the closing he is for it. I continue with asking, “How can you be honestly aware of what the author’s perspective is when he contradicts his own views?”
She lets out a cracked witch-like laugh, pauses, then looks and asks me “Why must you be so Devil’s Advocate about everything”?
“Excuse me?!?”
She walks away. Still expecting me to write a summary on the article stating where the author stands. Luckily she didn’t collect it, because I had nothing to write.
Later we switch to vocabulary. She doesn’t give us words, we have to pull them from the copyrighted articles she has Xeroxed off and handed out. She wants 30 words but I can barely pull out a small few. I find one word that does stand out and I call her over and ask what it means. The word is “pruse” and she looks and then tells the group of us to “look it up”.
I tell her, “OK” then pull out my blackberry. She snaps at me, “PUT THAT AWAY IN CLASS”. I look at her innocently, “I have a dictionary on here.” She snaps back again “I SAID PUT IT AWAY”. Looking confused I start asking if anyone has a dictionary. Everyone is already looking at me due to the commotion, and a quick glance around the room shows everyone shaking their head “no”.
I look back at her and ask, probably a little cockier than I should, “how am I suppose to look it up”?
She glances back as if trying to burn a hole through me with her laser vision, “look it up when you get home”. Then walks away.
Break time finally comes around, and I grab my note passing friend and head to the Peet’s Coffee that is on campus. Once there we meet up with some other students from class and we all start talking about how much we hate this teacher. With the occasional pun towards me, “You’re the Devil’s Advocate”.
I respond “What does that mean anyway?” Everyone just shrugs.
I crack the joke “If I fall out of my chair into a pool of blood with my car keys in hand, it’s because I couldn’t find anything sharper to slit my wrist”.
Upon walking back into the classroom Peter Griffin is telling everyone about how he had to get a pre-nuptial agreement after he was married so that his wife couldn’t touch the $1,000,000 he has in a South American bank. Before I even had a chance someone called bullshit by asking “if you have a million dollars, why are you here?”
Then said something, I can’t even remember what he said, but he had changed the subject and started talking about a huge house his uncle had left him in Boston. The same person that just called bullshit told him “if I had a house in Boston, I wouldn’t be here”.
The professor walks in, “ok class, let’s quiet down”. At least she didn’t walk over and flash the light this time. Leaving us with a little bit of dignity and the ability to control urges to reach for our sippy cups.
Now she wrote an introduction sentence and a quote on the board, and wants us to create a paragraph using the introduction sentence first, the quote second, and create our own closing sentence. My question was “so we are just creating a closing sentence”?
Oops! Pissed her off again. “No, you are writing a paragraph”.
“But you already wrote everything but the closing sentence”. I add.
She shoots an evil glance at me like she wishes she could give me detention, and I suddenly realize I need to just shut up, before she fails me for being a smartass.
I copy everything down, and write my name at the top. I concluded with a closing that basically repeated what the first sentence said. I thought she would get mad again, but came by and read it told me that I did a good job. She said it in a way that made me feel like she was out of gold stars, but I deserved one.
The class slowly starts to get louder and Mr. Griffin starts round three for his bullshit of the day. This time I tune him out and start to play with my blackberry under the table, praying for the class to end.
The time finally comes and I wait for the girl that sits next to me to gather her stuff, so I can walk her to her car. Although today she stops to talk to the professor. So I patiently wait, but she is also waiting for another student asking a question about how she is suppose to write that last paragraph. I am wanting to blurt out, “she wants you to copy what is on the board, you moron”. Feeling like that won’t resolve the issue I bite my tongue and try to urge my friend to forget it and go.
After finally leaving the classroom I have this uncontrollable urge to scream, WTF!!!!
I start exchanging complaints with my friend and realize I am not alone. After several minutes we are in the parking lot, and get in our cars then part ways and go home for the day.
I tend to enjoy writing. I am not the best speaker, and writing lets me correct and re-arrange what I want to say so it’s understandable to everyone around me. While speaking I tend to sound more like a babbling idiot. Well, I guess writing isn’t much different afterall.
This class though gives me the feeling that I am not only back in high school, but that I am back in the 5th grade. The curriculum is much lower than the last English class I took. The professor seems to fit the profile of a kindergarten teacher and not a college professor.
The biggest problem I have after saying all that, is that this teacher asks for an opinion, then scolds me for having a different opinion than her. It reminds me of my ex-wife all over again.
So if you’re following me on Twitter and I start talking about my suicidal thoughts, just know, I have English from 11-2pm Tuesdays & Thursdays.
The address to my blog is http://adium.razornylon.com/ if this comes off sounding like spam then please remove the link and not the post. I am mainly after the feedback.
I had to stop reading it because my eyes teared up to much from laughing. 
Plus the relate to it factor was off the scale. 
Now I don't feel so bad that my own life is such a total freak show! All I can say and think all day long as I go through my daily routine dealing with others is; Are these people really from this planet? Cause I am thinking some have got to be visting us. I heard some of us are from Mars and some from Venus. A gender I.D. thing I heard about, but these others? Sheesh! I am clueless about them as they themselves all seem to be. 
I know I am not the brightest bulb on this planet, perhaps a dull glow. But I am amazed at the increasing number of burnt out Bulbs going about these days. 
