05 May 2003 ~ Superior...

I got an email this morning telling me that my "superiority" is "overbearing."

...from my professor.

Okay, in all fairness, I am taking it out of context. I wrote an observation paper to turn in to him and the rest of the class; my professor didn't get a chance to read it initially, and when he eventually emailed me about it, he did say that it was "engaging."

Okay, so it's "an engagingly written piece." Well, that's good. Because I did actually spend a little bit of time on it. Several hours, in fact, not including thinking-time. Most of the other "papers" that were turned in were approximately one paragraph long, and hadn't been spell-checked. Some of them didn't appear to be in English at first glance. Not saying I'm the world's greatest writer or anything; just saying that, at least I spend a little bit of time and effort on the work I do. I didn't expect to be told I'd done the best job in the class or some foolish thing like that; I just wanted to hear: "good job, and here's what I think about this, and if you're interested in such-and-such, maybe you should look into studying this..." Something like that. I REALLY thought it was fairly good. Not perfect, but really pretty good.

It was "engaging." And that was the ONLY good thing about it.

The rest of the email was lousy. My "superiority" is "overbearing." My "rhetoric" is not convincing. I don't spend enough time on what he considered the most important part of the paper. The kicker is when he starts off a sentence with: "But, in the event you are ready to reflect just a bit more..."

Superiority WHAT?

In the event that I am READY to reflect just a BIT more...

He ends the email with: "Thanks for writing it." (It, as in, the observation. As if I had a real choice. Oh, I could have NOT written it, and gotten no credit, but it's not like I had any pleasant choice other than to write the thing...)

Now, okay... Here's the deal...

I LIKE this guy. I think he's an okay teacher, a fantastic lecturer, and an obviously very intelligent person. I very much respect his opinion. I listen very intently in class, I take my notes, I generally come in on time, I contribute to discussions, I read what we're supposed to read... Hell, I've read stuff I didn't HAVE to read, when I didn't have any free time at all, just because he'd recommended it in class... But I keep getting the feeling that my professor just REALLY dislikes me.

The seminar, I cannot stand, and I couldn't care less what most of them think of me...

Here's the seminar breakdown... Imagine twenty people in a room. One of them is absolutely stupid -- as in, thinks "colonialism" in America was started by "people always wanting to take over the land of the Irish." And she talks INCESSANTLY, so that no one else can get a word in edgewise. One girl is the class dictator, how gets all huffy when people aren't discussing what she wants them to discuss. (This, by the way, is not me.) There are two people who never talk at all, no even on cigarette breaks. There are a bunch of people (maybe ten) who appear NEVER to read the texts, and come to class every damned week to talk about their personal lives. And there's my buddy T., who was in my fall quarter class with me. He's cool. Everyone else... Dude, they just sit there and talk... not about the books, not about the topics of the week, but just... about NOTHING... Today, for example, we wasted like, ten minutes talking about food pyramid. It's a class about the changing historical and sociological perspective of children in America, and there we were, talking about the food pyramid. People were ARGUING about the food pyramid. "No, the food pyramid isn't taught in schools, because I know in MY elementary school..." What the fuck?

Anyway, I hate this seminar. I've tried everything I know how to try. I've tried busting into the discussion and asking, "can we talk about the book now?" -- and people GLARE at me, like I just hit them or something. I've tried just listening until something interesting comes up. I've tried being a patronizing bitch. I've tried being a submissive follower. I've tried arguing little details, like everybody else does. Still, anything I say gets shot down, no matter what it is. If I said, in class, "I think sunsets are pretty," somebody would attack me for it. If I said, "killing people and throwing their bodies into the middle of I-5 in order to create traffic problems is wrong, and people shouldn't do it," somebody would take issue with that. SOMEbody would have had a sister who'd been a murderer, and throw a hissy-fit that I wasn't respecting their sister. I mean, just fucken bullshit like that.

And, after seminar every Monday, everyone in this class is supposed to email our professor, to tell him how seminar actually went.

I mean, I'm not going to LIE... I'm disappointed, I'm frustrated, I'm angry, and that seminar makes me feel like shooting people or something. And throwing them into the middle of I-5. So, when I email my professor my summaries of Monday seminars, I tell him the truth. I tell him what we said, what we did... I give verbatim quotes. I tell him that it seems like many people haven't done the reading. I tell him that no one wanted to talk about the books. I tell him that we spent ten minutes fighting over the stupid food pyramid. The man lives in the middle of nowhere, and I'll respect his decision to let us run our own Monday morning seminar, but I'm not going to tell him everything was peachy in his absence.

He printed out one of my emails. He wrote on the bottom that perhaps I should take over a seminar sometime, and "with some measure of generosity" conduct it to its conclusion. He suggested I email the class dictator for her thoughts on the seminar that day: perhaps I might learn something from her. She'd written many of the same things I'd written. Only, her spelling was crappy, and her sentence structure never varied. So what am I supposed to learn from her? What's all this about "generosity"? Is that sarcasm? What?

The next day, in class, he asked me for my thoughts on something, and then laughed at them, as if I was just being totally ridiculous.

I was told that this professor has some odd philosophies about teaching. That is to say, he does not believe in fraternizing, to any extent, with students. This is what I hear, anyway. Apparently, being friendly to a student damages the student-teacher relationship. I had to raise my eyebrows when I heard this. The dude's teaching partner is one of his own former students. ...So, by all accounts, is his wife. I just don't know what to make of any of this. I suppose I'll just discount all of that; most of it is just hearsay, and I don't really care to be gossiping about stuff I don't really know about.

"Superiority," huh?

I don't think I'm fucking BETTER than anybody. I don't think I'm all that great at all, at ANYTHING. Oh, I tease Jake, and we're sarcastic together, but I don't think I'm fucking superior. Anything I can do, there's somebody who can do it about a billion times better than me. Sure, I think I'm smart, but Jake's dad, my professor, my friend Juliana, TONS of people are smarter than me. I think I'm okay at reading, and writing, and doing dorky homework things... But there's always somebody who reads more carefully than me, who memorizes things better than me (that's not too difficult), who tells me my "rhetoric" is unconvincing. I recognize that. I KNOW I'm not the best at anything. Hell, I know I'm not even all that GOOD at most things... But I really don't think I'm copping ANY sort of "superiority" attitude with ANYBODY.

But in the interest of preserving my chance at getting all my credits this quarter, I'm going to play it safe. I'm just going to go to class, I'm going to take my notes, I'm going to turn in what needs to be turned in, and I'm going to shut the hell up. I'm just simply not going to speak anymore. If I'm not contributing anything but unconvincing rhetoric and a sense of overbearing superiority, then I guess I just won't contribute anything at all.

[Can you tell I'm a little pissed off?]

~Helena*