so, college: 1

i know i've told you about college
but i don't remember what i've told you, exactly
so i may overlap a bit

when i applied
i applied as a political science major
because i thought i was going to be an activist
or a politician
believe it or not
but then
when i actually started
i registered as undeclared
because i couldn't commit to poli sci
and
besides
all the stuff i wanted to take was non poli sci

what my conversation the other day brought home
is that most people start out with pre-requisites

i smooth ignored it
i skipped right over the stuff that said if you didn't take x,y,z first
your class may not count

also
i knew i didn't want to take the cattle classes
so i sought out a list of alternate 3000 and 4000 level classes
which could be subbed for those cattle classes

i looked through the schedule
found things that interested me
went to the book store to see what the assigned reading was
see if it looked interesting

the first day of class was the professor's audition
if i like them
their syllabus
their attitude
i stayed
if i didn't like it
i went and switched the class

i had taken AP english
and the AP test
so i placed out of one semester of sophomore english
i had taken the achievement test so i placed out of one semester of freshman
i tried unsuccessfully to explain that
if i had placed out of any sophomore english
i shouldn't have to take any freshman
but they required one semester of each
but i think i took a couple years to get around to the freshman
possibly i took it before the 3000 level creative writing class
but i'm not sure of that
i know i didn't take my sophomore english until almost graduation

i had tried to take intro to modern literature
with some professor who was suppose to be hot shit
but the problem is
at UH if you're in a cattle class it's teaching assistants
and i was not ok with how that went down
and the prof wasn't good enough for that

i wrote a paper
not a big paper
just an assignment
on a walt whitman poem, i think
and this dude gives me a D
now
i have never gotten a D on any written work
and then he says
you have no understanding of rhetoric
i was a philosophy major by this time
like, seriously
is it just that you can only recognize a five paragraph theme?
this guy was obviously not smart enough to teach me

but
it worked out for the best
because i discovered summer session
at a point when i was working for my mom and had a little more flexibility
with my hours
i could work open till close on friday, saturday, sunday
and devote monday thru thursday from early morning until whenever to school
there was a professor
who, turned out, was retiring
this was his last semester
the class was intro to drama
but in the book store
the text was major works of shakespeare
ok, i though, i'm in
he was teaching both classes with the same text
and same class really
i took the class in the morning
i went to the library
read the plays
watched the royal shakespeare company productions
in the film lab
drank coffee from the vending machine with those dunkin stix donuts
also from the vending machine
it was all awesome


i got off on a tangent
an this is kinda long so i'm starting another