Foot in Mouth 101
Currently, I'm taking the capstone class for my major, English 495. By the end of the semester, I will have written a 15-page paper, and hopefully will not have collapsed at any point. I'm taking the section about memoirs, because I enjoy reading memoirs, and if I have to write a 15-page paper about something, I better enjoy it.
However, because of the pretension inherent in English majors, the class discussions typically turn from talking about the actual memoir to talking about the meaning of truth and getting all existential on me. We once discussed the meaning of the word "meaning" for twenty minutes. Seriously.
The class is really interesting, the reading is great, and the professor is super nice, but I really cannot handle my fellow English majors sometimes. As a fellow classmate said the other day, "Guys, if you're not Justin Timberlake, don't buy that fedora." And I concur. Once, I walked into the class and one of the two men in the class was saying, "One day I just decided that it shouldn't be about how I look that day, it should be how I feel. I stopped looking in the mirror before I left the house and instead started assessing my attitude about life."Almost word for word.
Because the class is based on writing a daunting capstone paper, the professor meets with us periodically too see how our work is progressing. The first meeting was a week or two into the semester and he had just told us that the next memoir that we would be reading had a rather graphic section that we could skip if we so wished.
Now, I get kind of annoyed by people who are really squeamish about books that we read in out classes, because honestly, it's never that bad. And I have a somewhat high tolerance for indecency and a low amount of kindness. That's probably a bad thing. Anyway, I was determined to prove to this professor that I wasn't like that. I was cool.
We started talking about my paper and then he reminded me about the section that I was allowed to skip. I laughed and said, "Oh, no. When you said that there was a part I could skip, I though, 'Sweet! I'm definitely reading that part!'."
He got very serious.
I immediately regretted my decision.
"Yes, it's a very graphic scene of the rape of a child, so many readers find it disturbing."
"Oh."
We went on with the discussion and I kept trying to find ways in which I could drop that I was not a sociopath. I eventually managed a, "I promise I'm not a psycho" before the meeting was over.
Maybe I should just start wearing a fedora and shut my mouth.
However, because of the pretension inherent in English majors, the class discussions typically turn from talking about the actual memoir to talking about the meaning of truth and getting all existential on me. We once discussed the meaning of the word "meaning" for twenty minutes. Seriously.
The class is really interesting, the reading is great, and the professor is super nice, but I really cannot handle my fellow English majors sometimes. As a fellow classmate said the other day, "Guys, if you're not Justin Timberlake, don't buy that fedora." And I concur. Once, I walked into the class and one of the two men in the class was saying, "One day I just decided that it shouldn't be about how I look that day, it should be how I feel. I stopped looking in the mirror before I left the house and instead started assessing my attitude about life."Almost word for word.
Because the class is based on writing a daunting capstone paper, the professor meets with us periodically too see how our work is progressing. The first meeting was a week or two into the semester and he had just told us that the next memoir that we would be reading had a rather graphic section that we could skip if we so wished.
Now, I get kind of annoyed by people who are really squeamish about books that we read in out classes, because honestly, it's never that bad. And I have a somewhat high tolerance for indecency and a low amount of kindness. That's probably a bad thing. Anyway, I was determined to prove to this professor that I wasn't like that. I was cool.
We started talking about my paper and then he reminded me about the section that I was allowed to skip. I laughed and said, "Oh, no. When you said that there was a part I could skip, I though, 'Sweet! I'm definitely reading that part!'."
He got very serious.
I immediately regretted my decision.
"Yes, it's a very graphic scene of the rape of a child, so many readers find it disturbing."
"Oh."
We went on with the discussion and I kept trying to find ways in which I could drop that I was not a sociopath. I eventually managed a, "I promise I'm not a psycho" before the meeting was over.
Maybe I should just start wearing a fedora and shut my mouth.
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| The book is great, by the way. You might just want to skip a few pages.... |
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