Friday, September 7, 2012

English: Anxiety Rollercoaster

With my unfortunate textbook experience behind me now, I had one night after class, and the day of, to get my reading assignment done for this week's English class. I got one story read after government on Tuesday night and after examining how long the other two readings were, I decided I could get them done after work and before class on Wednesday. I got them knocked out with no problem.

The stories weren't that bad, although one of them left me utterly confused and I really had no idea what happened. Seriously, in my notes that we are supposed to take I wrote down two sentences, "I have no idea what I just read. I think the lady died of a broken heart?"

Got to class at about the same time as "Mr. English" and he let us into the room. Took my seat and waited for everyone else to file in. One student came in... with her mother. Interesting. Did she just need a ride? Was her mom making sure she wasn't wasting her and the Dad's money? These are questions that bounce around in my head while I'm sitting in class and should be taking notes.

So we start to discuss our reading. In between these readings, Mr. English gives us notes and we start to discuss examples of things he's telling us about. One girl.. why is this person in every class... she has to give her OWN example after everything he says. I'm all for class discussion, but when he's not asking for things, shut up and take notes. Seriously. Nobody cares.

I am starting to enjoy this class I think, and my hesitation has all but gone away about it. The fact that he gives examples that are from movies helps me out a lot. The problem with that is, everyone has to comment on the movie and you get a lot of "Oh! I love that when the guy with the thing does this oh man it was so great!" or "They should make a sequel!". Then you get the nerd in the back talking about how it relates to Lord of the Rings and on and on and ON AND ON... I appreciate the way he is giving us these examples, but it manages to derail the topic rather quickly.

Mr and Ms Laptop in the back of the class got in on a conversation we wound up having. Well, Mr Laptop did anyway. It was quick, but I immediately wanted to hit him in the face. Somehow we wound up talking about Steve Jobs and Mr. English said how he was surprised that he was only worth $4 billion when he died, and how Bill Gates is worth something like $31 billion. Mr. Laptop chimes in with "Yeah, and that's why Steve Jobs will be remembered for his products and Bill Gates will be remembered for being a billionaire."

Really, dude? Jobs wasn't a billionaire? He wasn't a ruthless businessman? Visionary, yes, I'll give him that but he didn't have a bad side to him, just like I'm sure Gates does? Just because he made stylish computers doesn't mean he's cooler than Bill Gates. You're lucky I don't have a sharpened pencil...

It's a good thing I have a filter on my brain sometimes.

Mr. English assigned us two more readings, which I'm almost looking forward to reading. He said that last week was the most he would ever assign us reading wise. Although I do believe he said he was going to assign our first major grade next week. Buckle your seat belts, the anxiety train just left the station. Do people wear seat belts on trains? 

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