"A Horrible Case of Bestiality"

[ubermaus]

Given that my first day of American Lit I was pretty much exactly what I expected Graduate School to be like, it's almost surprising that I'm here of my own volition. We would have been having a fairly worthwhile discussion about the poetry of Anne Bradstreet, except that the class discussion was dominated by:

1. A "non-traditional" student, the kind

Comments

[haggisthesecond]

You almost (almost!) make me nostalgic for coursework. In my MA year, the equivalent of ponytail guy was Jeremy, a skinny Leonard-Cohen-obsessed fellow in a fedora, who brought Cohen into as many discussions as possible. Fine in our contemporary Canadian poetry class, but not quite so germane to the course on the emergence of the concept of selfhood in Elizabethan literature.

I have also experienced a number of non-traditional grad students. If by non-traditional you mean stoopid, that is.

[pendulous]

Wow, Grad School at UCONN sounds more like an upper-level ACU class than I expected.
Perhaps, someday, I'll be that non-traditional student after all.

[pendulous]

If I can just remember where to stick them commas.

[ubermaus]

It's similar in some ways. However, during class #2, I was gratified to see Holly-the-rambling-non-traditional-student receiving a baleful glare from Melissa, grand poo-bah of the Rainbow Center.

Not to mention the diversity talk we received during orientation from a 250 lb dreadlocked black woman who explained to us that some of her students found it odd/threatening that she was a "witch." I'm pretty sure "witch" wasn't a euphemism for anything, either.

Witchery

[pendulous]

I've heard Chris Willerton had a long running relationship with The Dark Arts. But I guess they aren't so open about it at ACU

[bellapoison]

My question is...how did he recognize the sheep? He had favorites? Did he say, "Hmmm...this sheep looks like it would be a better lay than this sheep?"

[ubermaus]

You can imagine how disgruntled I was, after plugging through about two hours of vague discussion about pilgrims, or something, that when we got to this bit of the story, no one even brought this question up. I mean, I was under the impression that graduate school would be a place for us to explore serious textual issues and taboo subjects. But no -- no one even giggled when the teacher said "buggery."

Clearly, I should be someplace where the level of discourse is up to my demanding standards -- perhaps a 9th grade locker room. Or the University of California.