I'm so sappy. Seriously.
I forgot that my MW class at DH (Dominguez Hills for further reference) is American Lit II. I got to class about an hour early and was able to procure my parking permi, $80, my student ID, $5, and lunch, Subway, $5. But the quality of my English education at DH, priceless. The class itself is small, and the classroom is small and stuffy. I placed myself in the front row, of course, and waited to meet the man the psoters at ratemyprofessor.com called "sexist", a "woman hater", and "impossible". I don't really know why I go on ratemyproffesor anyway, seeing that I don't really have a lot of options in planning the next couple of years. I sort of have to take what I can get, when I can get it. The man, who I think is named, Giamotti, kind of like the actor, I think, strolled in, tall and wiry, mid fifties, with an 80's cotton turtleneck reaching for his too-high too-thin ponytail, cargo pants, and puffy hiking sneakers squeaking away accross the front of the room. He presented the syllabus from the college classroom website projected onto the screen, and in a short amount of time I learned that we were doing three papers of 750 words, and three in-class exams. No research, people. NO RESEARCH. But thanks for the training. I made myself proud by knowing all of the authors in the small pictures at the top of the webpage, Twain, Eliot, Faulkner, and Morrisson. I did you proud. We're using the same anthology that we used in Blythe's class, so I saved some dough in that department. The guy did earn some points by saying that Moby-Dick is the greatest American novel. Kudos. Maybe he will teach American Lit I and I will get to read my essay, which now that I have access to a University library, will get revised proper.
But I missed you. I wanted to telly you immediately afterward how superior you are! How much funnier, and more likeable! I'm already begining to think that the next two years won't be as hard as I thought. I hope American Lit II is going well for you, Joe.
5 comments:
Well, at least it is nice to know that I am more fashionable that at least one university professor. Yeah, quite frankly, one major reason I stay at FC is because of the faculty who are ALMOST without exception some of the kindest, most fun, and honestly, smartest people that I've ever met. Yes, Brandon and Joe, that does include you.
Even though there have been no pies in recent memory....
And by the way, BEER ON CAMPUS!?! And we can't even bring alcohol to campus functions at FC. SO UNFAIR!! (Maybe the powers that be at FC know something about us......)
Yes, a "Sports Bar" on campus. You know where to find me on Tues and Thurs after class. By the way, I wish I could stay at FC FOREVER. Isn't that sort of pathetic? Yet it is a testament to FC's amazing English department. Ya'll be hard to top, that's for sure.
Thank you for remembering us. It is good to know that we compare favorably to the university. I do think sometimes we try to overcompensate because community colleges have this undeserved reputation for not being rigorous like the universities are. Hopefully, that all still turns out to be an advantage to our students.
It's funny that you're writing about Huckleberry Finn in your next post. We just finished talking about that in American Lit this past week, and we raised many of the same issues that it seems your class is discussing. This is a very talented group of students, certainly, and they're keeping up with the reading. It would have been great to have you in class to participate in the discussions. You could have certainly helped the other day when we discussed gender role reversal in Bret Harte's "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and only male students (and almost all of them, in fact) participated. I have no idea why the women in class sat that one out.
Pies take time and energy, both of which are in short supply in my life now that the spring semester has started (and one week earlier than usual). Blame the early start time on the lack of pies?
I don't know why the girls kept quiet. There certainly is a time for it, but I don't know if that was it. By the way, we haven't discussed Huck Finn yet. We have only watched an hour and a half long movie regarding the use of the n-word and the stereotypical portrayal of Jim in the novel, which has gotten the book removed from some public school required reading lists, and the instructor left the room while we watched it. A small New Critical voice in my brain was kind of annoyed, but what else is new.
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