i asked god for a sign today, and i guess i got it, but it kind of traumatized me

thirty-year-old sushi guy
i don't think i mentioned
is a student
he's in junior college

and i guess he's in an english class, or something
so he asks me to read "his paper"

he makes some comment about it being late
but how if it's amazing he can get away with it
and he talks a little bit about what a good writer he is

so
i'm thinking
ya know
that it's a finished paper, and he just wants
i don't know
advise about making it perfect

but
i mean
jesus christ on a popsicle stick
this is not even coherently a paper at all

he read an essay
which, in fairness, i haven't read
but, even so, i think he is speaking to what he read
but
is it possible that he really thought that that was a paper

i think i may have not been a very good friend
i tried to give him useful advice
but
i don't think that's what i should have done

it was the first moment
[reading his paper, that is]
in which i was profoundly grateful that i did not become a college professor

it began with the most passive version of not really saying anything that i think i have ever read

'it is the case that in life there are many things which are beyond the control...'
but it wasn't clear if that [or anything else in the first paragraph] was an assertion of the author of the essay or the author of the paper.

anyway
he's talking about a victorian essay on finding what one truly likes
or something
and he was saying that the author was gay
and he had a subtext [i'm paraphrasing]
he was asking his readers to consider what they really liked
rather than liking what they were told to like
and, i mean you get it
it could be an interesting paper, or not

but
he seemed to be supporting his point
by using outside sources to say the guy was gay
[yes, he says, that's what he's using the outside sources for]

and i flash back to high school
what do you know about what this teacher expects, i ask him
because i got into all kinds of trouble
trying to make assertions about the motivations of the writer
english teachers don't usually want you to really make you own assertions
they usually want you to collect a group of approved scholarly types
who have already had your thoughts, and quote them

and
i tried to explain to him about passive sentences and why it really is better
to have a subject, verb, and object
and how much stronger a short paper it might be
if he stated, oh, like  in his essay "blah blah" M. Blah states blah blah blah
and when he does that what he is really doing is blah.
and then proceed to show with examples from the text
those points

so
what we learned here is: i'm a bitch, right
i mean
if he didn't know that stuff
probably
i should have been nicer to him

but
how do you get though high school without learning that
he took me by surprise

but
i had a similar experience with my mom a few weeks ago
she is taking some sort of public speaking coaching
and she had written a speech
she wanted me to proof read it
tell her what i thought
now
my mother can write
she understands that
she just didn't really take into account who she was talking to
she's making a shell argument
because she's trying to convince people that they need to be more creative
only she doesn't really care about that
what she really wants is to sell them lessons

so she starts out with an argument meant to persuade non-creative types
only she doesn't fact check
so there are things that are just wrong
and then she seems to get bored with it
like, whatever, i gave you enough reasons
and starts talking about how our inner creative self might be our soul
[which, under normal circumstances, i might say: hell yeah, cool
but coming at the end of this let's-appeal-to-the-left-brain attempt
made me want to dismiss her entirely]

i told her it would be a stronger argument if she chose her audience
although i'm thinking now
you could do a two pronged argument
if you set it up that way
that might even be stronger, in fact
appeal to a mars and venus type dynamic
show how creativity training could benefit each type respectively


so
i'm asking you now:
what is wrong with me

what is this experience supposed to be telling me