I am so eating my fucking cake
"In the interests of full and up-front disclosure, here are some reasons why a student might plausibly decide not to remain enrolled in this section of English 67:
(1) Your instructor is not a professional literary scholar. In fact, though my job title at the college says ‘Professor of English,’ I am not a professor, because I do not have a Ph.D.
(2) Your instructor has taught intro lit courses before, but not for several years, and never before at a college this selective. The upshot is that there may be a certain pedagogical clunkiness about this section of English 67. You will, in effect, be helping me learn how to teach this class. The level of our discussions may have to be adjusted up or down, depending on how well-prepared you guys are and how quickly you catch on to the concepts and techniques of ‘close reading.’ Certain approaches might turn out to be a waste of time. There may be abrupt changes in the syllabus. Extra work may be added. Let me say that again: Extra work may be added.
(3) Some other sections of E67 also survey literary nonfiction and drama. In here, we’ll be working only on fiction and poetry.
(4) Your instructor has high standards for the written work you turn in. Take another close look at Course Rules & Procedures Items 4 and 7 on page 3 of the syllabus. I know that many professors say this kind of hard-ass stuff at the beginning of the term but don’t actually mean it or enforce it as the course wears on. I, however, do mean it, and I will enforce it—feel free to verify this with students who’ve taken other classes with me. If you want to improve your academic writing and are willing to put extra time and effort into it, I am a good teacher to have. But if you’re used to whipping off papers the night before they’re due, running them quickly through the computer’s Spellchecker, handing them in full of high-school errors and sentences that make no sense, and having the professor accept them ‘because the ideas are good’ or something, please be informed that I draw no distinction between the quality of one’s ideas and the quality of those ideas’ verbal expression, and that I will not accept sloppy, rough-draftish, or semiliterate college writing. Again, I am absolutely not kidding. If you won’t or can’t devote significant time and attention to your written work, I urge you to drop E67-02 and save us both a lot of grief."
Pomona College, English 67, Section 02, Spring ‘05 syllabus, Caveat Emptor, instructed by David Foster Wallace. (pdf) (via langer)
Monsterbeard: remind me to tell you of the dream i had about you last night. It was crazy!
eth?
Last night was great fun, but now I’m left confused and in the middle of a love-triangle thing with a friend of mine which is not where I want to be. And I don’t know what in the hell to do now.
Today I contacted every single fucking person I know and told them I was thankful for them in the most ridiculous show of rampant gushiness. I don’t want to even think about the number of people I forgot, I just may have to get them later.
I am thankful for my bedcovers being extra comfy this morning, and I cannot wait to slip back into them.
Am also thankful for the thing that I thought of earlier but have since forgot… something that people do… I don’t know. My brain is so tuckered right now I couldn’t spell “the” backwards.
Pie beats cake any day. Fact.
I think I’m in love with at least half of the people I follow, everyone is so goddamned beautiful and thankful (Here’s looking at you Jake)
I still can’t get over how my grandpa looks since his surgery. The distressing thoughts on all that that implies, along with all the other shiz that’s going on, is just too much for my brain right now, yet they will not cease.
Remind me again why the f*ck I have to work tomorrow? Because I’m the only person in the effing office that doesn’t want to go shopping somehow means I’m the perfect candidate to work? Whatever happened to seniority? Why should it matter that instead of frantically fighting the masses for cheap shit I’d rather confine myself to my extra comfy bedcovers all day, consuming nothing but tea, fruit, and It’s Always Sunny episodes? Isn’t this America??
Now I’ve worked myself up and I hate going to bed resentful so even though I am hella tired I’m going to binge on some Always Sunny clips and see if I can’t wake up tomorrow in the mood NOT to cause harm to others.
deleted my twitter.
i found it shallow and pedantic.
while I agree whole-heartedly about the shallow bit, I don’t see how pedantry applies to the twitter lot. Irony at play
Interesting turn of events
Every so often I purge the tumblrs that I follow in an ever-lasting effort to create a streamline of worthwhile content, and there have been many that have come and gone and a few that have even managed to stick around, 11 to date. One of those being a certain Ned Hepburn, a favorite among tumblrs everywhere. It was while I was at his tumblr that a fuzzy memory of a tumblr award sabotage began to tug at my brain.
Looking back I am not proud of my bragging, and even though I still think it funny, I cannot say if I would make the same choice again.
So, thanks Ned, for all the good words, and sorry for the bad ones.
It happened.
I guess I just don’t know how I feel. On one hand I am bummed that it happened and even though I had come to the realization that someday it probably would I figured there would be something more, a warning or heads up or something, on the other hand I am responsible for it happening in the first place so the only one to blame is me. It was just the other day that I spoke of the possibility happening, and how I would be okay with that, but now that it’s not just a possibility anymore and it really did happen I don’t know if I can still say that I’m okay with it.
It meant more to me than I suppose it seemed it did and to be completely honest its because it meant so much to me that I ran away from it. Exactly like when I realize the guy I like likes me back and I obsess over what I’m not good enough at until I become so pathetic and insecure that he can hardly stand to be around me, which I convince myself of, and I don’t know why I do all this to myself so I just quit it all because I can’t stand how crazy I become and the guy is left wondering “What in the hell just happened?!” and I am off somewhere in my head thinking of getting drunk, and thinking of never dating again, and thinking of what I need to do to get past this retardation I have.
So, I know why it happened, and I knew it was going to because I was the one to leave and I didn’t say that I would be back. In my heart I don’t even know if I wanted to be back, I’ve done some thinking on it and come up with some things but I didn’t take those ideas anywhere. Even now I know I could probably reverse what has happened, but I don’t know if I want to, nor do I know if I don’t know because I am still afraid. Now questions loom in front of me like the things I used to see in the night, should I do it to triumph over my insecurities even though it is something I maybe didn’t enjoy doing as much as I thought I could? Should I give it another try because with this fresh perspective I may be able to enjoy it like I though I would? Should I let it pass because in the grand scheme of my life this is small potatoes? Is it small potatoes? What if the small potatoes represent, or worse, directly influence some big potatoes? I mean, life, it’s all connected.
My action will be my decision and although I am not dealing with the devil I am dealing with myself which is worse, because no matter if I succeed, or compromise, or fail, I will have no one but myself to meet at the end, and that makes me wonder if it’s even worth the trouble because, if it’s all the same to me… Right. So that’s what I need to figure out.
Diablo Swing Orchestra— Poetic Pitbull Revolution
