The Phantom Cone

You are all now cordially invited to address me as "Master," preferably in a tone appropriate for a Sith lord or otherwise highly revered being.

Yes, I graduated from my Master's program. I haven't posted on here since February, and a few milestones have occurred since then.

Since February, I successfully completed an absolutely fantastic student teaching internship, sold my soul to Steve Jobs and succumbed to the iPhone, turned the ripe old age of 24, and began searching and interviewing for my very first teaching job for the 2011-2012 school year. Of those things, the only fun part has been the iPhone and a new, sick obsession with the Words with Friends and TapZoo apps.


Yes, I have a virtual zoo on my phone and yes, I want to be your neighbor.

So far, the only negative thing I can say about the iPhone is that my texts still often make me look like a drunken 4-year-old. I've had it since March and I still have not conquered that cursed touch screen keyboard.

Soon, keyboard. Soon.

The task of chronicling everything I've done or seen since February seems too daunting to me on this lazy Sunday. Instead, I'm just going to try to make a couple of succinct reflections about the end of my graduate program, and then discuss something I think is interesting and funny that happened to me last night.

So, what did I actually learn in my graduate program? That's a very difficult question, seeing as I considered a lot of what I did in grad school to be what I call "graduate level busy work." However, after twenty-four months of grad classes, I was bound to come away with something, right? I know my parents and their tuition money sure hope so.

This is what I think one learns in grad school:

1. If you thought you were a good procrastinator before, graduate school will push you beyond your wildest realm of imagination in this regard.

My paper-writing record was 6 pages in fifteen minutes, and I'm pretty sure I was also drunk. As the saying supposedly goes, "some papers are good, and some papers are done."

2. You will meet the greatest people of your life.

The individuals that comprised my cohort for the past two years are the most hilarious, intelligent, entertaining people I could have hoped to survive the trenches of grad school with. The great thing about a graduate program is you get a mixed bag of the most random group of people ever, and you probably would never have met each other if not for your very specific shared interest in secondary level English, or whatever your discipline may be.

In our small cohort alone, we had our resident "creepy old guy," the singer from a metal band called Right to Fall, a comic-book-loving-Black Belt asskicker girl, drunken theologists, former undergraduate party animals, and many other colorful characters. I feel lucky to have gone to school with this hodge podge of badass weirdos.

This is some of us pretending we have bat wings in our Master gowns. Who gave us graduate degrees again?

3. You will meet the most terrible people of your life.

As evidenced in my many posts on The People You Meet in Grad School, there are some really terrible, miserable people roaming the halls of higher education institutions. The people who live to hear the sound of their own voice, who have such an inflated sense of ego and self worth you wonder how they bear to sit in the same classrooms as mortals such as yourself, who play devil's advocate "just this once" every. single. class period.

Let's not!

I hope these people continue pursuing graduate degrees for the rest of their lives so I never have to encounter them out in the real world, and they probably will. Because that's what they do. Professors are not excluded from this category of people.

4. Being a nerd is cool and socially acceptable.

Now, depending on where you went to school and what kinds of activities you were involved in, this might ring true for some undergraduate programs. In grad school though, it is especially accurate. Suddenly it is perfectly acceptable to go to pint night and talk about nothing but Shakespeare or a project due in class next week. In fact, I found it was hard to talk about anything BUT school when I went out with my classmates.

School consumes your life, and that's okay. If a lively debate over whether Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi is the better Star Wars episode made it into the conversation, that was okay. And on some rare occasions, if your friends don kilts or start speaking in rudimentary Middle English accents over a bottle of "Chaucer's Mead," that was okay too.

5. Everyone develops a superiority complex, and your school's graduate department will give any idiot a Master's degree if they pick an easy enough discipline.

I'm not excluding myself from this conclusion. Once I got to grad school, I immediately thought I was better and more worthy of praise than my undergrad counterparts. I couldn't help it. I was aware of it, and I might have even tried to quell it once or twice, but I couldn't. I got infuriated at Facebook statuses from undergraduates complaining about 5 page papers and having to go to a 50-minute-long class.

Ohh really? You think 50 minutes is a long time to sit in a classroom? Go to grad school and have fun rotting away for 3 hours straight, three times a week. (It's even more fun if they've just repainted the hallways of your classroom building and done nothing to repel the noxious fumes). Go to grad school and enjoy writing 30 page papers and compiling hundred page portfolios.

Here's the other thing. At least in my program, this complex transcended the simple grad-undergrad dichotomy. I'm sorry, Physical Education majors, but we just really didn't perceive you as being on *our* level. I'm sure these were nice, intelligent people, but in our orientation for our final semester of the program, one of them seriously asked what it meant to write something in "narrative form." Really?!

I once asked a guy in one of my grad courses which class he'd just come from. His reply was "Basketball." Not "Principles of Teaching Basketball," or maybe even "Advanced Basketball Strategies." Just basketball. And they gave him a Master's degree.

Enough ranting. That's all I have. I'm sure I also learned a great deal about teaching methods, canonical literature, adolescent psychology, or strategies for struggling readers. But mostly just those things up there.

HOKAY, SO......part two! The following incident can be filed under "weird shit that happens to me and gives me the fodder for keeping this blog in existence."

My sister drove down to my apartment from our parents' house last night to keep me company because neither of us has friends. We went to see the movie Bridesmaids. It was a funny movie. A bit predictable, a bit disgusting at times, but not a waste of money.

So we saw the movie, during which I drank approximately 44 ounces of Diet Coke, and went to find my truck in the parking lot.

That's when I spotted it. From across the parking lot. I stopped short. I grabbed Stephanie's arm and she stopped, too. She looked back at me inquisitively. I was entranced, but I spoke...

"What is that on my car?"

She looked over to my car.

"Oh my god. I don't know. What is that thing?!"

We walked a little bit closer, tentatively of course. If you've spoken to me for five minutes, you know I'm nothing if not suspicious and irrationally paranoid.

When we got close enough to determine what it was, we looked at each other and shared a why-does-this-weirdass-shit-always-happen-and-only-happen-to-members-of-our-family? kind of look.

This is what was on my car.





It's a cone.

A seemingly innocent orange parking lot/traffic cone. But why was it on my car?! Who put it there? What if there was something underneath that cone?! My truck is not at a party. It does not need a party hat. What are you doing up there CONE?

For some reason, it terrified me. It was a piece of molded orange plastic, but I was terrified. I think it was the mystery behind the cone more than the cone itself. We didn't want to touch it.

I was thinking things like "maybe there is a bomb underneath my car?" or "maybe there is someone hiding in the backseat?" Two highly irrational thoughts, because if either of those things were true, I don't think the perpetrator would have warned us about his deeds with a bright orange cone sitting like a beacon atop the car.

Stephanie ended up swatting it off the roof of the truck, and I told her to toss it in the bed. I would decide this cone's fate later.

That's where the cone still sits right now. I have no plans for the cone, and I don't even why I kept it. But it taunted me and I wasn't going to let it stay in its familiar home in that sketchy movie theater parking lot. I'm open to suggestions as to what to do with it.

Welp, that's it folks. I've re-emerged from my long blog absence. My apologies if I've rambled as a result.


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Sh*t My Professors (and Classmates) Say

Oftentimes when I am sitting in class, I get bored. I look for avenues to rectify this situation in a variety of ways. But most often, I entertain myself either by drawing ridiculous things in my margins, or by quoting ridiculous things I hear come out of the mouths of either my professors or my classmates.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may be familiar with a post I did called Notes from the Margins. This post will be similar to that, only I decided to also add in all of the random quotes I copy down during class.

This is partly because I take a lot of my notes on my computer now, so drawing in the margins isn't really an option during those classes. And partly because my professors and classmates are hilarious, in my opinion, and I want to share their deep thoughts with the world. Enjoy.

The other day, one of my Education professors was having us engage in an activity on imagery. She walked to a classmate wearing a flannel shirt and posed the question:


"What does Rachel's flannel shirt feel like?"

My classmate's response?


"Flannel." Well said, Jen.



And from that same professor comes these profound ideas:

"You'll just want to stab yourself in the face with a fork. You'll just stab yourself."
(regarding the idea of us trying to fully grade every piece of student work that comes in)


"Your grades are dropping like prices at Wal-Mart."
(self-explanatory)


This next group of quotations comes from a Professor on whom I loosely based my Endearing and Hilarious Quirky Professor. I have him for a graduate English/Film course, and the guy is an absolute trip.

"Capitalism castrates men. They must win their balls back with Fight Club!"
(we were discussing Fight Club that day)


"Are you opening it?....Is that you?.....Oh! I thought it was Tyler Durden!"
(on the classroom door creaking open from a draft)


"I didn't mean to humiliate her. Oh wait, actually I did."
(on calling a student out for being late)


"They're freshmen! They're scared of me. They don't yet know I'm a pussy cat. Meow!"
(talking about the other, undergraduate level course he teaches)


"Piss ant! I love that word!"
(I can't remember the context, but does it matter?)


"You guys want to look at the vomiting scene? I love vomiting."
(during a discussion on Brokeback Mountain)


"If you guys know anything about S&M communities, this is exactly what happens in S&M communities."
(he then retracted this statement after he realized it might not be 'school appropriate')


"If I spit on you, I'm sorry. This is my blanket apology in advance."
(apparently he is a spit-talker. I never sit close enough to experience this.)


"You're freaking me out over there, baby cat!"
(he calls several of the girls in the class 'baby cat', for reasons unbeknownst to me)


"I love Hearts. I play Hearts all the time. Cause I'm a girly man!"
(on his affinity for the card game Hearts)



And now, some actual notes from the margins:


this was during a lecture on Genesis. obviously my Professor had just addressed this particular phrase...





homegirl LOVES her some pride and prejudice. this was her reaction when someone questioned Mr. Darcy's suitability for marriage. "Oh my god, he comes with a wonderful package!"





just a nice little rendering of a potential book cover for Kafka's Metamorphoses. I think my roach is especially nice, given my opinions towards roaches.




some classmate who never says a "peep" during class wouldn't shut up during this particular lecture. which led me to draw Peeps?





"All the other royalties/crowns of Europe were pooping in their pants." I think she may have been talking about British imperialism or something. Regardless, i thought it was worth writing down.




This is a margin note between Heather and myself. I can't recall the exact context, but I know we were talking about tyranny in ancient Greece ("tyranna"-saurus rex). the rest is up to your imagination to decipher.




"Actual child being butchered in front of you? Not cathartic...traumatizing." ....during a lecture on catharsis.




possibly my nerdiest margin note drawing yet. it's an owl, complete with a Hogwarts acceptance letter, addressed to the "cupboard under the stairs."




i. was. tired. i guess i thought drawing sheep and Zzzz's on my paper was a good alternative to actually counting them in my head and falling asleep.




my professor is Italian, and sometimes her English doesn't translate exactly right, resulting in words like this: "sexuated"...in reference to Marilyn Monroe.




I believe we were talking about paganism of some sort, and I was particularly proud of my illustration of Pan. mythological goat demons FTW.



And finally, although these last two quotes don't fit exactly into the parameters of this blog post topic, I found them worthy of posting:

From my lovely roommate:

"Well, do we have any mugs? or any particularly big, spacious cups instead?!!"
(on whether or not we had any clean bowls to eat ice cream out of, and her desperation for finding a suitable replacement without having to do any dishes)


And from my oldest brother, who has a 5-year-old kid....we were getting into the white van my mother had procured for transportation to another brother's wedding in NYC:

Brother: "Well, it has windows, so at least it's not a child molester van."

5-year-old nephew: "Daddy, what's a child molester van? WHAT IF IT IS A CHILD MOLESTER VAN?!"

Brother: "Oh, uhhh....Daddy's just being silly."


Father of the year award goes to......?



Cheers! And go Gamecocks!
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Nutshell Summer

*Shoutout to my baller friend Gary for helping me think of a post idea. I'm like a sad little dry well in the middle of the Kalahari when it comes to blog topics these days.*

This post is relatively straightforward. Unless I have a bunch of noobs reading my blog, which I don't think i do.

Since summer is now officially over, here is my summer in a nutshell. Be forewarned, my summer was not. very. exciting.



Phase 1: The Not-Really-Summer-At-All Part of Summer

The spring school semester ends.
Everyone else starts raging and gallivanting and otherwise enjoying their summers.
I start a Maymester class 2 days later.
I realize Maymesters f***ing suck.
My townhouse floods. (there's a post for that....)
I realize my townhouse f***ing sucks.
I immediately start a Craigslist-fueled scavenger hunt for a new living situation.
I hit the Craigslist jackpot and find a lovely new pad with a sweetass new roommate.
I move in to said pad (which I lovingly call The Herm).
I pray that my hopefully-not-a-murderer new Craigslist bunkmate doesn't chop me up and store me in the walls.
Maymester ends. I ball out with my grades as usual and get an A.
My next summer class starts.
I almost fail said class due to complete and utter lack of interest and motivation.
That summer class ends.
My "failing" final grade ends up being a B+ because I'm awesome.
I get my first break from grad school in 13 months.
My actual summer begins.



my summer school did not involve Hawaiian leis, cool dogs wearing sunglasses, or Mark Harmons.




Phase 2: The Southeast-Traveler-and-Superbum Part of Summer

I go to Atlanta to see my old college roommate at Emory.
I discover the asskick-in-a-can known as Four Loko. I drink it often.
I go to Charleston and Edisto with the Sister and the Suz.
I attempt to be in Columbia as little as humanly possible.
I basically live at my parents' house again and spend their money and eat all their Cheetoh puffs.
I chill with the doodles all day long.
I stay in bed till 1 in the afternoon approximately every other day.
I drink some more Four Loko.
I go to Atlanta to see aforementioned college roommate again.
I go days at a time where I only leave the house to get food or sometimes not at all.
I play 5+ hours straight of Wii Super Mario Brothers with my nephew on the REG.
My sister and I spend all of our time with each other because we apparently have no use for "friends" and get even weirder.
I discover Criminal Minds and do nothing but have Crim Minds episode DVD marathons for almost a month.
I develop a stalker-like obsession with Mathew Gray Gubler and get legitimately borderline depressed when I exhaust all of the episodes.
I drink some more Four Loko and eat some more Cheetoh puffs to console myself.


this is what superbum probably looks like.




Phase 3: The Edisto-Family-Vacation Part of Summer

The Townes clan heads down to Edisto for the annual shitshow that is our beach vacation.
We bring along some other extended family members and family friends.
We drink beers on the beach.
We drink beers on the balcony.
We discover that Edisto now has a "pub crawl," with all FOUR of the island's bars participating.
We participate in the pub crawl 2 different times.
Our parents kick our asses in beer pong even though they've "never played before."
Everyone gets sunburned.
I buy a cowboy hat.
I don't take off my cowboy hat for a week.
We take a daytrip to Savannah. (Fun fact! Savannah has no existing open container laws).
We watch Shark Week all week long.
Everyone is subsequently scared of the ocean.
Assholes near us on the beach fish and attract potential sharks to our swimming spot.
We talk a lot of shit on these assholes as we drink our beers.
We play a lot of Scattergories.
I get entirely too competitive for a board game and win most games of Scattergories.
Suz makes a crapload of margaritas.
The adults get drunker than the "kids", try to deny it, and it's hilarious.
Everyone is sad as another successful Edisto trip ends.


this is approximately what I envisioned every time I got in the water




Phase 4: The Kinda-But-Also-Kinda-Not-Crappy-End Part of Summer

I get sad to leave Suz, Steve, the doodles, and my summer crash-pad in Greenville.
I go back to Columbia full time because school is starting.
My newly-confirmed-not-ax-murderer Craigslist roommate comes back from her summer job and I no longer have to live by myself in The Herm.
Ugly-as-sin pigeons nest all over our balcony in piles of their own shit.
We contemplate their murders.
We decide we can't kill the pigeons.
We buy fake owls from Wal-mart to scare the pigeons off.
We name the fake owls instead and put them in our living room.
Roommate and I discover awesome things we have in common like Mathew Gray Gubler and Crim Minds fetishes.
Fall Classes start.
I rediscover my hatred for having classes with undergrads.
After 2 days of class, many new TPYMIGS blog posts are inspired.
I get my high school assignments for this semester's student teaching and I am happy about them.
I start student teaching 2 days from now.
Many more blog posts will hopefully ensue.
Summer officially ends.




Eff school. Look out for some posts about the beginning of my high school student teaching experiences and some more "People You Meet in Grad School."

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The People You Meet in Grad School: Part 5

Since finals week and May graduation transpired, many people are now enjoying an unfamiliar phenomenon known as "summer break."

Not this girl. And neither are my other 21 Maymester classmates.

In the Spring semester that just wrapped up, I had 100% English classes, even though I'm in a teaching program.

Understandably, my Maymester had me switching back into the realm of Education classes, with a course entitled "Foundations of Reading Instruction"...a.k.a, the Teaching of Reading.



(sidenote: i am glad i don't have to teach this bug.)

(another sidenote to define what a Maymester is: Maymester (noun): An evil, 3-week chunk of time during the month of May, in which an entire 3-month semester's worth of class and work is sardine-packed into 15 days of school. Obviously created by a sadistic dictator of collegiate administration of years past.)

On the upside? Maymester has spawned a new TPYMIGS post. This one is a little more specific than my previous posts, so I'm sorry if my fellow grad schoolers in programs other than Education can't relate.

Actually, no I'm not. Here she is folks....


5. The Overemotional Education Student

Okay, we get it. We're gonna be teachers. We're gonna be "making a difference." Does that mean we all have to transform into the biggest SAPS on the face of the planet to make it through our Education programs?

I like to think "no."

The Overemotional Education Student (OES), however? For them, not a day of class goes by where this person is not borderline moved to tears by some article that the rest of us thought was painful just to get through. This person also always--ALWAYS-- has some sentimental event/story from their past that they can very sneakily relate to the topic at hand.


Professor: ...And that's why it's good for kids to read.

The OES: (interjecting by claiming that their comment will be "really quick" and proceeding to talk about themselves for 20 minutes) Well, this is just especially important to ME because I didn't learn to read until I was 15 and I somehow got into this graduate program anyway and I just know that I'm gonna connect with my students because of that. (tears forming in their eyes)

Or....


Professor: It's important to give your students positive feedback.

The OES: (again, blurting out comment without being acknowledged or called on) Well, when I was in high school, my teachers always graded in red pen and this really hurt my very fragile feelings and I vowed never to do that. They also corrected my grammar on my papers, which really got in the way of me expressing myself and my emotions and also this hurt my feelings again.


What's that you say? You had teachers that used red pen and....GASP!....corrected your dreadful grammar?!? Who are these neo-Nazis of the world of Education and how dare they try to impose the basic rules of Standard English upon you?

Cry me a freaking river, OES. (actually I probably shouldn't say that with as often as this person is on the verge of unnecessary optical waterworks).

Believe it or not, I go to class with plenty of people (professors included) who think grading in red pen is the work of the Devil and that pesky little things like grammar should be overlooked in favor of personal expression. The OES is the commander in chief of the anti-red pen squadron.

Overemotional Education Students really do believe that they are making "deep, personal connections" with every kid that they spend more than 5 minutes with. That's all well and good, except that in reality they are so swept up in their idealistic bullshit that they probably aren't accomplishing anything besides convincing themselves they are academic messiahs.

And their students probably all think they are a bunch of namby-pamby bleeding heart pansies. And I kind of agree.

This may make me sound like a heartless bitch, but I disagree. I'm not going to care any less about my future students. I'm just not going to cross into the Dark Side warped perception known as Academic Fantasy Land.


i think this is probably what Academic Fantasy Land looks like. you know, the same place where people shit rainbows and butterflies.


No, I'll stay right here in Reality and try to keep my distance from the Overemotional Education Students, lest they contaminate my views with kum-bay-ah delusions and incessant talk about their feelings.

Oh, and I'll be grading all of my papers with a big, huge, RED PEN. Future students beware.




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Brutal "Honesty"?

I recently got a paper returned to me in one of the classes I'm taking at the undergraduate level.

Now, I realize this is college, and professors (especially the ones with tenure) are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want in the classroom in the way of lecturing, grading, etc.

However, I thought the comments written on my paper by this particular professor, who I won't name, were a tiny bit more brutal than necessary to get his point across. I'd lump them in the category of "unconstructive criticism." They are as follows:

"You really have a great deal of work to do on your writing STYLE. Order the book, "Elements of Style," by a guy called Strunk. Read the book and take the advice. You are a fine writer but your style is absolutely atrocious. This needs work."


In other words....



I'm not even defending the paper I wrote. I despise the class, literally could not care less about the subject matter I wrote on, and probably spent a grand total of 2 hours on it.

I just think there has got to be a better, more diplomatic way of letting your student know that you thought their paper was the worst thing you've ever read. Shouldn't respect go both ways in a classroom?

Like I said, maybe the paper really was shit, but never in my entire academic career have I been told so bluntly that the way I write is "atrocious."

Even more curious to me is that, given the comments I received, surely this paper should have been awarded a big, red "F," right?

He gave me an 84. That's a B.

Thank god the end of the semester is only 3 weeks away.

Notes from the Margins...Part 1?

First, props to Lydia over at My Post-Argentine Life for partially inspiring this post with her grandiose margin doodles she shared with me in the Thomas Cooper library yesterday.

Second, I'm supposed to be devoting this entire afternoon to starting my 20 page term paper on David Copperfield. Oopsies. Fail. Instead, I've spent the last half hour flipping through the pages of my notebooks from this semester.

I have kinda sorta been scanning the pages for material upon which to create a bangin' David Copperfield thesis, but mostly I've just been amusing myself by taking pictures of the ridiculous notes I've found in the margins from various lectures of the semester since January.

Here are some of my favorites. I don't have an explanation for a lot of these, because I can't remember what prompted me to draw or write them in the first place on whatever random day of notes I found them. But don't worry, I'll just make shit up.



I think this little guy was supposed to be Yoda, but he ended up turning into more of a Gremlin.






Yeah, definitely more of a Gremlin.






My History of the English Language professor is obsessed with Tolkien. And Star Wars. and the Bible. This is a little tally I kept one day of how often he mentioned these various things. "Bible-I, LOTR-IIII, SW-I"





Looks like I'm often "paying attention" in this class. Another tally of my professor's nerdy (awesome?) references to pop culture or Jesus. "LOTR-I, Monty Python-I, Bible-I"





As showcased in my TPYMIGS posts, many of my classmates are obnoxious. And apparently, "front row girl is an idiot."




We were talking about acronyms. Or something. At any rate, hooray SCI-FI!!





I know this is tiny and almost impossible to read, but it appears to be a grocery list of sorts. My crucial grocery concerns on March 2 included "Mich Ultra, milk, merlot," in no particular order?





This must have been during the winter Olympics. I was loving me some Canada. And some maple leafs.





My Shakespeare's Tragedies professor said the character name "Goneril" approximately 600 times that day, and all I could think of was "gonorrhea." Your mind would have been in the gutter too.





"He's drinking FRESCAAA." I'm obsessed with my Shakespeare professor. It seems my love for him only grew when I discovered his affinity for Fresca.





"Last Action Hero = Hamlet" Who knew?



And finally, some extremely intellectual, academic advice...



"make shit up."

Straight from the mouth of my Victorian Lit professor. And I think I'll take her up on that. Life's more entertaining that way.





PS: Lydia, if you're reading, I would LOVE to see a post of this nature from the pages of your notebooks. I feel positive that hilarity would ensue.

The People You Meet in Grad School: Part 4

I haven't posted anything about school in a while, and, given the title of my blog, I felt like it was high-time. Plus, I just got finished self-exterminating my entire townhouse with a smorgasbord of roach insecticide products, so I'm in a stellar mood.

So, here is TPYMIGS Part 4....


4. The Blip

Just as some characters in TPYMIGS lineup are notable because of how obnoxious or conspicuous they are, others are equally as notable for their obscurity in grad school classes.

The Blip is a hard individual to characterize, for the sole fact that they somehow effortlessly fly under the radar of you and all of your other classmates. This is a person that you all know for a fact participated in the whole go-around-the-room-and-say-your-name-and-program-and-where-you're-from thing on the first day, but beyond that, you can hardly remember what this person looks like, much less their name or program.

The Blip never participates, always sits in the corner, doesn't attempt to befriend classmates, doesn't have any existing friendships with classmates from past semesters, perhaps, and you generally just tend to forget the guy/girl is more than a figment of your imagination or a fuzzy shape in your peripheral vision.



The Blip also seems to skip class altogether on a very frequent basis. How they do this and still pass a graduate level course, no one knows. On the numerous days when The Blip is absent and someone actually happens to notice, questions/comments such as these are spawned:

Does anyone know that guy/girl's name?

What guy/girl?

You know, the one with the [insert very generic physical characteristic here].

Oh, I forgot they were even in this class.

Are they taking it for audit?

Have you guys ever heard him/her speak?

Yeah, I swear they were in class last time. They sat right over there (points to some chair in the classroom.)

Um no, that was So-and-So, the IOU. Couldn't miss him.

Does anyone have any other classes with him/her?

Does that person even exist?




By the end of the semester, The Blip has usually stopped appearing in class altogether, and it's obvious they have dropped the course or said a big "F you" to grad school or died or something.

Sometimes, when you're an ubercreep like I am, you get so intrigued by The Blip that you even go on Blackboard, check your class roster, and figure out their first and last name so that you can try to stalk them on Facebook. But alas, even that doesn't work. The Blip is nowhere to be found, even on the privacy permeating, all-knowing social networking site we all hate to love.

Yes, by semester's end, The Blip has eluded identification by even the creepiest of his/her classmates, and the rest of us run-of-the-mill grad students will just have to wait it out until next semester when the next Blip comes along. Maybe then, we can all pull our heads out of our asses and extend friendship to this Lord of Anonymity.

Ah, who am I kidding. None of us will notice he's there.

The People You Meet in Grad School: Part 3

Well hello there Blogosphere (and those wandering over from Facebook)!

You may have noticed I took a short hiatus there for about a week and a half. I was, however, in England on Spring Break. So, sue me for not carving out sufficient time to write a blog while I was there.

I've been back to the academic grind for three days now, which I assure you is plenty of time to rediscover my fascinations/annoyances/ruminations/grievances of my fellow students. I actually thought of so many more categories for this serial-blog that it was hard to settle on one. But for now, I give you....



3. The Interjecting One Upper


Ahhh, one uppers. Aren't they great? (This is of course rhetorical. If you can actually answer any form of the word "yes" to this question, you should probably stop reading my blog.)

No. One uppers are some of the more infuriating people walking this good green earth. In graduate classes, these attention starved wannabe intellectuals take it to the extreme. The worst part is that it's impossible to spot these individuals by appearances alone. They could be anyone from the middle-aged guy whose wardrobe hasn't evolved out of the 1970s to the chick with hippie braids fresh out of an all-women's liberal arts school "up north."

You can't be sure who might be an Interjecting One Upper (IOU) at the beginning of the semester, but it becomes screamingly evident within a couple of class periods. If you're lucky, you find out via another classmate who is the IOU's first victim. They have a couple of techniques, but it almost always involves an interjection of some sort.

You meekly raise your hand in one of the first class periods because you're still feeling out both your professor and your new classmates and you just want to get your participation points and call it a day. You begin to make some intelligent-sounding (albeit safe and non-controversial) comment about guilt in Othello and then...

BAM!

The IOU comes side-tackling in with their much more important, much more intelligent, much wittier comment and your pitiful attempt at contributing to the discussion goes down the shitter, flushed with triumphant gusto by the IOU.





They go about their interjections and subsequent "genius" remarks in a few ways.

Sometimes they will phrase it in the form of a question, so as to allocate room for the slight chance that their contradiction is not 100% right. This is simply a social formality. Everyone in the room knows that this person believes anything they say is more correct or original than anything a fellow student might have to say. Something like, "Oh, but ISN'T everything I'm about to say much more accurate and in-depth than what Sparknotes McGee said over there?" Technically it's a question, but really it's a crotch-blow insult to whoever they just cut off.

Another favorite tactic of the IOU's interruptions are "knowing looks" to the professor. About 3 class periods into the semester, the IOU has most likely already alienated most, if not all, of their classmates. So, upon making their pompous interjections, they will then look at the professor. They look in such a way that suggests the two of them are in some academic dimension so far above the rest of us that, even though we are shooting the IOU scathing death glares, it must just be because we can't possibly comprehend the complex point they are making.

Wrong. It's because you are obnoxious and the rest of us have formed a camaraderie based upon our dislike of you.

Let it also be known that the Interjecting One Upper is apparently an expert on any and all subject matter that could possibly be posed in discussion by another classmate. From Classics to the modern novel, the IOU has been there, done that, gotten the (probably liberal) T-shirt, and is most definitely more learned than you on the topic.

To make matters worse, this trait hardly ever comes by its lonesome either. The IOU tends to be a subcategory of at least some other type of grad student. Like say, maybe, the Flaming Liberal.

And since the IOU is so obtrusive and outspoken, all the rest of us can do is revel in that camaraderie with which we are bestowed simply because of the presence of this individual.




--Coming soon will be more TPYMIGS installments, including "The Blip" and "The Professor's Best Friend"--

The People You Meet in Grad School: Part 2

After attending a class or two this week (just kidding, Mom, I went to all of them!), the second installment of my TPYMIGS serial-post is basically begging to be written. Higher education, I have discovered, produces some rare, rare breeds of crazies, and also apparently eliminates a lot of people's filters for what is and isn't socially acceptable. Or even just socially tolerable. Having said that, without further ado, I give you....


2. The Flaming Liberal

First things first. I mean no harm or offense to any political views with this category. It's a free country. If you want to hug trees or burn bras, more power to you! At some point though, can't we all just put away our social agendas and get along? Well, no, the Flaming Liberal (FL) has lost the capacity to do that. It's amazing to me that, just like with the PS, there is a Flaming Liberal in every. single. class. you're taking somehow.

This person usually rolls into the classroom with just a few minutes to spare, or maybe even a few minutes late, you know, just to really stick it to society. If your particular FL classmate is male, they will typically be dressed in one of two ways. The first involves ripped up, ratty jeans of some sort, possibly even cuffed at the bottom in an attempt to express their free-spirit hippie lifestyle. And sandals. The male FL loves him some sandals. Even better if they are made out of hemp or some other natural, if not controversial, material. Their upper bodies are usually adorned with a thinning t-shirt with phrases like "Creativity, not Conflict," or "I Think, Therefore I am Not Glenn Beck." These would be more impressive, I suppose, if the FL had not bought it on liberaltees.org for 7 bucks.


Yup, we get it. You hate conservatives.


The second way they might be garbed is less of a hippie-FL and more of an intellectual coffee shop-FL. They usually wear slacks, argyle sweater vests, and possibly even a fedora. And facial hair. OH, the facial hair! The more and the scragglier, the better! I think somewhere there must exist an unwritten rule/bond amongst Flaming Liberals that they must...have...facial...hair. Even the girls. Just kidding. Soul patch, goatee, chinstrap, sideburns, full-on ZZ top beard....doesn't seem to matter to the FL, they just gotta have something.

As for the female FL, they are not as easy to immediately pick out of your new classmates. One good indicator is an ankle length skirt or leggings. Also, the apparent lack/need of any appropriate chest-area undergarments. They must have burned all of theirs.

For Flaming Liberals as a whole, I can pinpoint two of their most distinct characteristics. The first is their uncanny ability to uncover hidden political agendas behind every freaking piece of literature you read. The Flaming Liberal could probably tell you how Stephenie Meyer is somehow pushing her political beliefs on us all with the Twilight saga. And if you don't want to hear it, well, you're screwed. The FL is one of the loudest, most outspoken, hear-me-roar people in the class. They tend to contribute their own "hilarious" running commentary on essentially everything that gets said, and you will listen to them, damn it.


Better not read Twilight, might get "influenced." If you're gonna read it, at least make sure you have an FL around to steer you back to the right path afterwards.


The second distinction is that apparently the Flaming Liberal lacks any pressing necessity for personal hygiene (read: they no longer bathe.) Now, this is speculation on my part. I can't PROVE that these people no longer shower more often than once a year, I can only go off the evidence my poor little olfactory nerves are presented with when I get stuck sitting next to them in seminar. How many times can one individual wear the same "Make love not war" shirt to consecutive class meetings without washing it, you ask? Evidently, a whole shitload of times. Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure you can still be a slightly abrasive agenda-pusher even after you've taken a shower.

But I guess the integrity of the awesome scragglyness that is their hippie beards might be compromised if they do something as radical as washing their hair. As a daily bather myself, I can, like I said, only speculate.

World peace 4 life.

The People You Meet in Grad School: Part 1

Before I delve into the topic suggested by the title of this post, I would like to vent for a hot minute...

I'm in an English program. I attend classes with all English majors, where we study the English language, literature, and authors. That being said, the following things were said in one of my classes this morning.

"He don't need nothing"

"He ain't got none"

"She ain't going nowhere"


What the hell is going on here?? This is an upper level English course, and many of the students in this class are on teaching tracks (god help us all). And these utterances were not isolated events. It was only after I heard them repeatedly in the course of one hour-long class that I jotted them down in my notebook so I could remember to be disgusted by them again later.

Here's my suggestion: make every student who wants to enroll in English classes other than basic general education requirements take a grammar and conventions of English test. Oh, and there should be written AND oral components. If they pass, congrats! They can move on to be the future English teachers of our middle and high schools, and can sleep more easily at night knowing they're not completely ignorant. If they don't pass, I vote that they should pick another career path. Preferably one that doesn't involve making an entire generation of kids more stupid by speaking and teaching the mutilated English above.



Whew. Deep breath.



Now, I've decided to start a kind of running serial-post about the types of people I encounter in grad school.

I don't want to discriminate however, because I'm positive that these stereotypical classifications show up in undergraduate classes too. It does seem though, that when people get to Master or Doctorate programs, they evolve into a whole new echelon of weirdo.

I'd like to kick off this posting trend with a species of grad student I've observed at least once in every graduate class I've enrolled in thus far. And it is...


1. The Perpetual Student

This is an interesting individual. You arrive at your classroom 15 minutes early, because it's the very first day of the semester, and the Perpetual Student (PS) is somehow already seated at a desk with an impressive spread of notebooks, texts, and papers in front of them.

The PS is usually confident and somewhat outspoken. Should you strike up a conversation with the PS and ask what program they are in, you'll probably get a reply along the lines of "Oh well I'm here working on my PhD. Yeah I have a Master's from so-and-so school in Victorian lit and another from [insert-small-liberal-arts-school-here] with a concentration in 20th century American, but I just really had an interest in...blablabla..." Ten minutes later, you're sorry you asked.

The PS seems to have done nothing but attend graduate school for the past 17 years, with no end in sight. If you happen to let on that you are a first-year Master's student aspiring to teach high school, you can also expect a somewhat smug or condescending look, and a whole semester's worth of feeling like an idiot every time you gather up the courage to speak and participate amongst these gods of Academia.

*That last bit was "sarcasm", which is a phenomena the PS has lost all familiarity with, so you can feel free to use it liberally around them. The PS has been a student for so long that they have essentially crawled up grad school's you-know-what and died.

BUT, There is an upside to the Perpetual Student. If you can stand to be around them, they do come in handy when exam time rolls around if you've been too busy having a life to pinpoint exactly what the central theme is in Plato's Republic.

The PS will obviously know, and will probably JUMP at the opportunity to interact with a real, live human being outside of class.





I'll be posting more chapters in this vein of thought from time to time. Trust me, the freaks I go to class with provide me with entertainment every day, so I'll be sure to introduce them to you too.

Be sure to look out for a new post, "The Saga of Stella," coming soon.


I'll leave you with this......I thought it was appropriate given my slight rant from up there. i can haz shakezpeer kitteh?


:)