A Short Aside

Yeah,… I am,… you’re still reading, so what am I supposed to do?

(This is actually a defense mechanism. It’s a weird night.)

I’m confused because I normally have this really cool transitional phrase from the end of one episode to the beginning of the next. (Those of you who are brilliant enough to have figured that out from the reading thus far,… you,… you’re almost as smart as me for having written them.) And I can’t very well just traipse off to an entirely new subject and be expected to incorporate the last sentence of a completely different story into the first thought of a story I just thought of writing about, can I? (Holy shit, was that a long question!) Well,…. I’m gonna do it anyway.

And I had a plan.

That’s actually bullshit. I had no plan. I just decided to do this. It’s late, and I felt like writing this shit. Just appreciate it and move on.

There was this one time,… when I was in college,….

The second time. The first time was a complete waste of everyone’s time. Everyone involved totally wasted their time,…. And in the instance of my parents, their money, too. I mean WASTED! That first year I went straight from high school into college. Seriously,… straight in. I graduated on June 6th, and I started the Summer B session at college June 25th. I had two-and-a-half weeks of Summer before I had to be back in school,…. Who the fuck thought of this schedule? Did you do this to yourself? You did,… You DID do this to yourself! . . . You’re an asshole!

But that was my first time in college,…. I said I was gonna tell you a story about my second time in college.

I was twenty-seven and I had re-enrolled in school. Eckerd College had a program specifically designed for older-than-typical students returning to school on a night-time basis. The classes were one night per week,… for eight weeks,… and you were assigned about fifteen hours of homework every week,… for each class you took. (I took two classes at once for five terms and three classes at once for seven terms. It’s a school that really sells (and really buys into,… and for the most part, supplies) a liberal arts education.

And let me say,…. I buy into the liberal arts education too. I think it is incumbent on the student to be exposed to all of the various disciplines. I think it provides the student with the one ability a college SHOULD provide,… you learn how to learn. You leave after four years with the grey matter it takes to adapt to any situation,… in nearly any profession,…. RAH! RAH! RAH! (But seriously,… I like it.)

So,… the people who run the school tell you to go to a few early-in-the-program classes,… get re-acclimated to studying and incorporating it into your schedules,… take classes from a variety of disciplines,… (math, literature, history, organizational studies, information systems, blah, blah, blah),…. (Long sentences tonight, Johnny,… what’s up?),…. Learn a little of everything before you decide what you want to know a lot of. So, I did. Sort of.

The first term I took the first required class (one of only three required classes for ALL graduates). The second term I signed up for two classes: on Monday night I had Film and Literature,…. On Tuesday nights I had to go to Survey of U.S. History 1877-present. I was infinitely more excited about the Film class. Like I said, we met for eight weeks,… each week (including the first one,… we watched a film relating to a piece of literature. We watched the films in the actual theater of the college…. Great big, 250 seat auditorium for about fifteen fucking students. And we watched some cool movies,… “Hiroshima, Mon Amour,” Godard’s “Breathless,” “Citizen Kane,” “Dubliners,”…. Just a very cool class.

I was far less excited about the History class. I had done well in high school history, much to the surprise of my teachers: Mr. Lee, Coach Miklautsch, and One-eye Potter. I made up these nicknames myself,… uh, except for Coach Miklautsch,… he was actually a coach (does girls’ basketball count?),… and “One-eye.”…. My sister made that one up,…. So,… if you’re following, I made up NONE of those nicknames. Mr. Lee taught tenth-grade World History. I learned nothing. But I got As. Coach taught eleventh grade U.S. History. I learned the Colombian exchange and that Grover Cleveland was a president and Grover Cleveland Washington was a baseball player. One-eye taught me that radical, left-wing teachers can get jobs teaching high school.

So I walked into this sophomore-level survey of history class not expecting much. I was still working as a restaurant manager, so my schedule would sometimes make me late for the 5:30 start time. This first night of class was one of those nights. I didn’t get there until about fifteen minutes into the class. The teacher looked at me a little sternly. He was short,… and a little thick,… and rosy-cheeked,… and the sweatiest fucking bastard I had ever seen in my life,…. It was all I could do to keep from laughing in his face, the short, fat prick.

He handed me a syllabus and motioned for me to sit down,… (he had just begun discussing it). I looked at the syllabus,… wanted to see what readings were due and when,…. He started talking to the class again. I wasn’t listening,… I was reading.

He saw that I was reading and cleared his throat to get my attention. (I get it, you fat, sweaty motherfucker,…. I get it.) So I listened to him speak about the class and the term and what it was that he expected,… and everything I thought would be blah, blah, blah.

Except for this,…. He was fucking amazing! He talked about the topics the class would cover each week. He told us about the two exams and the paper we would have to write. He said he was going to have one guest speaker and one film during the term…. And he got so caught up in the thing that I couldn’t stop listening. He was so excited, that you couldn’t help but getting excited along with him.

During the required class the night before, I could see people getting tired and yawning and mentally just checking out—some even fell asleep during the film. The teacher finally let us leave after four hours—the classes were supposed to be five. The history class was different, for me at least. I was just riveted. Couldn’t believe this guy was this excited about this history shit,… couldn’t believe I was either.

So, I busted my ass in that class and got an A…. I also declared History as my major…. So much for the whole liberal arts and taking a bunch of different classes shit.

So,… here I am in graduate school,… and when I sometimes wonder how got myself into this mess, all I have to do is think of that original history professor,…. Then it makes sense.

I might get back to my original story next chapter,…. I may come up with something else,… who knows? But,… since I start off every installment with the last line from the previous one, why not make it difficult on myself,….

And that’s how I ended up banging a goat.

Next Time,…. Who really knows? This Blog Stinks!