Tinged with the slightest regrets of admitting this
This is an open letter to my professors and professorial friends, past and present.
Let me just start off by saying that, in general and in hindsight, I feel like I walked out of your classes with at least a few nuggets of useful knowledge. The exceptions are the classes formerly known as French 110, 230 and 231 at Grossly Enlarged Midwestern University. I should have postponed taking 110, since it was shuffled off to that file entitled "dead classes that the university will never offer again" a mere summer term after my having taken it. 230 was taught by a professor whose name shall not profane this blog - suffice it to say that I hold his lechery and blatant preference of well-dressed blondes against him. 231 - managed to hold my interest for a couple of class sessions, especially during the Farce of Maître Pathelin, but... yeah, coming up with nothing after that. Bêééé....
I had some classes that were outstanding. Capstone, for instance. David Sedaris's essay entitled "Make That a Double" is a must in my beginning classes, and I still carry around my Knopf Paris book. It is one of the most gorgeous travel guides ever - even its illustrations of the SEWERS are fascinating. Also the insanely difficult French 356, which taught me to respect the subjunctive in its many forms, and to at least pay attention to the passé litéraire, for pete's sake. Even French Civ, which I believe was numbered 100, wasn't half bad (except for the WebCT readings which would never print correctly, but that's my Mac preferences getting in the way of my education).
But let me tell you what. I still curse those of you out there who assigned the readings that, 6 and 7 years later, I have NEVER HAD COME UP AGAIN in a discussion. Not even with my friends getting their aggrégations. Not even in my master's classes up in New England. Not only were the vast majority of the said readings boring (I'd rather look up vocabulary than read them again), they also, for the most part, cost me some serious money because GEMU's bookstore gouges students on texts for class. So your readings, though painstakingly chosen from a field of hundreds of works, will now rejoin the other loser books like "Kansas Trivia" and anything by Mary Englebreit on our front shelves. Including anything not by Voltaire or Beaumarchais from that 18th-century lit. class, which is something to the tune of 4 or 5 books. The only redeeming quality of that class was seeing that I wasn't the only person that hated my roommate (a former classmate asked me last summer, "UGH! What was the name of that vapid girl, the one with the black square glasses...??") and when the professor decided to let down his hair and sing along with the recording of The Barber of Seville in class.
That is all. Class dismissed.
Let me just start off by saying that, in general and in hindsight, I feel like I walked out of your classes with at least a few nuggets of useful knowledge. The exceptions are the classes formerly known as French 110, 230 and 231 at Grossly Enlarged Midwestern University. I should have postponed taking 110, since it was shuffled off to that file entitled "dead classes that the university will never offer again" a mere summer term after my having taken it. 230 was taught by a professor whose name shall not profane this blog - suffice it to say that I hold his lechery and blatant preference of well-dressed blondes against him. 231 - managed to hold my interest for a couple of class sessions, especially during the Farce of Maître Pathelin, but... yeah, coming up with nothing after that. Bêééé....
I had some classes that were outstanding. Capstone, for instance. David Sedaris's essay entitled "Make That a Double" is a must in my beginning classes, and I still carry around my Knopf Paris book. It is one of the most gorgeous travel guides ever - even its illustrations of the SEWERS are fascinating. Also the insanely difficult French 356, which taught me to respect the subjunctive in its many forms, and to at least pay attention to the passé litéraire, for pete's sake. Even French Civ, which I believe was numbered 100, wasn't half bad (except for the WebCT readings which would never print correctly, but that's my Mac preferences getting in the way of my education).
But let me tell you what. I still curse those of you out there who assigned the readings that, 6 and 7 years later, I have NEVER HAD COME UP AGAIN in a discussion. Not even with my friends getting their aggrégations. Not even in my master's classes up in New England. Not only were the vast majority of the said readings boring (I'd rather look up vocabulary than read them again), they also, for the most part, cost me some serious money because GEMU's bookstore gouges students on texts for class. So your readings, though painstakingly chosen from a field of hundreds of works, will now rejoin the other loser books like "Kansas Trivia" and anything by Mary Englebreit on our front shelves. Including anything not by Voltaire or Beaumarchais from that 18th-century lit. class, which is something to the tune of 4 or 5 books. The only redeeming quality of that class was seeing that I wasn't the only person that hated my roommate (a former classmate asked me last summer, "UGH! What was the name of that vapid girl, the one with the black square glasses...??") and when the professor decided to let down his hair and sing along with the recording of The Barber of Seville in class.
That is all. Class dismissed.
posted by Linz at
9:14 PM
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