Lit Class: WTF?

So, today in Lit we were given the assignment of reading a couple of chapters, one of which consists entirely of the six short-short stories that we'll choose between to write our first paper, a comparison/contrast.

Now, here I feel the need to mention that my Lit book prides itself on being "contemporary" enough to include the latest in the "Literary Canon" which is defined for us lowly students as "a group of works that are generally agreed upon by writers, teachers, and critics to be worth reading and studying."

Some of it, to be completely honest, just strikes me as weird. It makes me wonder if some of these authors just sat down one day and said "hey, I'm gonna write a 'story' (snort, chuckle) composed entirely of song titles." Or some such.

Don't get me wrong, the author picked out good song titles for her subject, and it *does* lead you through the path of the "story" but come on, that's not a short story, not even a short-short. Maybe an odd kind of poetry, but not a story.

Even the story that is five sentences in its entirety makes more sense to be called a story than the list of song titles.

I know, I know, its supposed to challenge us, make us think beyond the classic view of literature, blah blah blah... but dangit, how in the heck am I supposed to write a comparison/contrast paper that's longer than the story itself? And you know, doesn't have artist information in parenthesis.

I'll figure it out. I've got a day or so to choose my subject or subjects, so I can re read them a few times and try to make sense of it all.

On the bright side, our prompt papers were returned to us, and mine had a little note on the end of it: "Good Writing."

*On an edited note, I wonder if my instructor would allow me to write my comparison/contrast paper sprinkled liberally with internet acronyms? Could be fun....

Apologies and Blog Props

I realize that I've been doing a lot of venting, and just day to day blah blah stuff on here. Honest, I'm trying to think of a funny to tell ya'll, I know I haven't done one in a while. I'm workin on it, I swear!

On another note, massive "props" (hey, I sit between two citified guys in my business class, don't kill me for not being able to think of a country-fried way of saying "Good job, dude!") to MattG for hitting 50,000 site visits on his sitemeter!

Matt, I'm jealous. Maybe I should try AD's suggestion of toilet humor and google-riffic phrases?

Lets give it a shot, see how my stats do today after this;

Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Angelina Jolie. *

Nudity, farting, poop, anal. **



*These are women that I think should be banned from appearing on the cover of cheesy supermarket tabloids. Give someone else a chance to get slandered, will ya?

** These are all things that were discussed in my Horse Production class today. Yes, really. Gotta love it when you're discussing taking a rectal temperature on a sick horse and someone mutters "yeah, but that thermometer isn't big enough to really enjoy the anal action." Oh yeah, and I now know how to bribe my Horse Production/Riding instructor. She likes Jaegermeister.

Conflicted

I've been conflicted on various things since I started getting everything set up for school.

To stay at home, or to get an apartment.

Which elective classes to take, i.e. should I take the ones that I really want to take that have nothing to do with my degree, or should I take the ones that look mildly interesting but have a bearing on my degree?

To get a student loan, or not to get a student loan.

Which horse should I bring?

Should I open my mouth now, or keep it shut and play nice?

Should I wait for the time I was *supposed* to bring my horse up, or go ahead and bring him, since they told me I could if I really wanted to? (Plus side on bringing him early was getting to go ahead and start riding. Minus side was the feed crews aren't organized yet, so I'd have to feed myself. Also, they asked me to wait to bring him, so the waiting side won out.)


Today, first class of the day, opening my mouth won out. One of the girls that was sitting in the same row as I was, was complaining about being up since four am.

Since she was complaining loudly, I figured she was talking to anyone within earshot, and offered my two cents.

Which was along the lines of "oh stop freaking whining, you have no idea how cushy you have it."

The discussion continued and it turns out she had a valid reason for being upset, a problem with her roommate, but then proceeded to whine about not being able to get ahold of the Dorm Manager (or whatever they call him, he's not the RA) to try and get a new roommate.

After five minutes of me offering suggestions (she was complaining about it, with the attitude of "oh what do I do?" so I figured she could use some suggestions, like leave a note and have him call her, or call him and ask him when she'd be able to sit down and talk with him,) and her coming up with reasons why none of them would work, ("But he's never there") she gave me a half-joking "When I want your advice, I'll ask for it."

Fantastic, and when I want to hear you complaining about stupid things while I'm trying to do a quick review of the things I read last night in between cleaning my apartment, doing my dishes, going to the grocery store, and doing homework for two other classes, I'll ask you.

What I said was more along the lines of "Keep complaining loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, and I'll keep offering advice."

I was pleasant, I didn't get snide, I started out actually trying to help this girl figure out ways to resolve the problems that she has, and degenerated into really wanting to tell her to suck it up and act like the adult she keeps wanting everyone to treat her as, but I stayed polite.

Mostly, I just wanted to get sarcastic.

Did mommy's widdle babykins not sleep? Poor baby, let's get you a pillow, and then we'll rock you to sleep and sing you a lullaby, and tomorrow you can go home and be mommy's widdle girl again and you won't have to do that nasty college thing anymore.

But then again, maybe I'm just a cranky old lady. Lord knows some of these kids make me wonder if I was ever that young....