I had sort of an epiphany today...

Dan

Senior Member
Aug 28, 2003
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I don't know, is it still an epiphany if it makes you feel like crap?

Anyway, I'm taking a class right now in which all I need to do is write a paper comparing two books, one that is widely accepted as being canonical, and one that isn't, and we have to argue for the inclusion of the non-canonical one by comparing it to the canonical one.

So, I'm doing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And my teacher has never read it. But, he obviously knows everything there is to know about it, nothing but drugs, and that's it. Which is fine, but the problem is, he's giving me all this crap about how it's not really accepted in the "scholarly community" as anything other than a druggie book.

Now, the thing that really makes me furious isn't that this teacher (sorry, PROFESSOR, he gave us a forty-five minute lecture the other day about how teachers just come in and do their jobs, PROFESSORS have to research, do scholarly articles, and occasionally grace us with their presence in front of a class) keeps crapping all over my idea in front of the entire class. I don't like the guy, he doesn't like me, and he clearly doesn't like Hunter Thompson. What pisses me off is his attitude of, "well us SCHOLARS don't care for these types of books." Isn't the point of the paper for me to PROVE that it needs to be included? So doesn't that imply that the scholarly community does NOT need to be welcoming it with open arms?

And the thing that really REALLY pisses me off is the way that so many people in the class just fall all over themselves to kiss the teacher's ass, or show off how smart they are to the rest of the class. And, really, what does it prove? What does this professor who spends all of his time sitting in classes and offices, writing articles that will only be read by other professors and underlings eager to get a piece of the scholarly circle-jerk, know about life? What does he know about art? Art is not something to be analyzed, it is something to be felt.

And, for some reason, even though it was right in front of me this whole time, this never dawned on me, how full of crap all these (well, most of them) scholars are. I don't know why I am so worked up over this, it's not something as simple as 'oh, he doesn't like my idea' or 'oh, he made fun of my idea in front of the class' because that stuff doesn't affect me anymore. It's just.... I don't know, the condescention, the fear that I'm already like that, or going to be like that. The fact that I have a million times more respect for the weirdo in the class who approached me after class and told me he thought my idea was great than all the straight-A brown-nosers looking down on me because my book has lots of f-words or because, GASP, it's been made into a movie. I don't know. Apparently, I'm the other weirdo in the class, and I'm sort of realizing that among that crowd, I wouldn't want to be anything else other than the outsider who DOESN'T think like everyone else in the room.

This has been my quarterly USMB rant. Thank you for listening.

By the way, if anyone's actually interested, I'm comparing Fear and Loathing to Dante's Inferno on the basis of characters, plot structure, and the theme of sin and how it relates to the works' respective times as well as how it affects the human psyche.
 
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Sounds like a legitimate way to complete the assignment to me. The prof is a jerk. I have known many like him. Psychology, history, and lit professors seem to be the worst, in my experience. Hang in there. Just get through the semester/quarter.
:)
 
Dan said:
I don't know, is it still an epiphany if it makes you feel like crap?

Anyway, I'm taking a class right now in which all I need to do is write a paper comparing two books, one that is widely accepted as being canonical, and one that isn't, and we have to argue for the inclusion of the non-canonical one by comparing it to the canonical one.

So, I'm doing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And my teacher has never read it. But, he obviously knows everything there is to know about it, nothing but drugs, and that's it. Which is fine, but the problem is, he's giving me all this crap about how it's not really accepted in the "scholarly community" as anything other than a druggie book.

Now, the thing that really makes me furious isn't that this teacher (sorry, PROFESSOR, he gave us a forty-five minute lecture the other day about how teachers just come in and do their jobs, PROFESSORS have to research, do scholarly articles, and occasionally grace us with their presence in front of a class) keeps crapping all over my idea in front of the entire class. I don't like the guy, he doesn't like me, and he clearly doesn't like Hunter Thompson. What pisses me off is his attitude of, "well us SCHOLARS don't care for these types of books." Isn't the point of the paper for me to PROVE that it needs to be included? So doesn't that imply that the scholarly community does NOT need to be welcoming it with open arms?

And the thing that really REALLY pisses me off is the way that so many people in the class just fall all over themselves to kiss the teacher's ass, or show off how smart they are to the rest of the class. And, really, what does it prove? What does this professor who spends all of his time sitting in classes and offices, writing articles that will only be read by other professors and underlings eager to get a piece of the scholarly circle-jerk, know about life? What does he know about art? Art is not something to be analyzed, it is something to be felt.

And, for some reason, even though it was right in front of me this whole time, this never dawned on me, how full of crap all these (well, most of them) scholars are. I don't know why I am so worked up over this, it's not something as simple as 'oh, he doesn't like my idea' or 'oh, he made fun of my idea in front of the class' because that stuff doesn't affect me anymore. It's just.... I don't know, the condescention, the fear that I'm already like that, or going to be like that. The fact that I have a million times more respect for the weirdo in the class who approached me after class and told me he thought my idea was great than all the straight-A brown-nosers looking down on me because my book has lots of f-words or because, GASP, it's been made into a movie. I don't know. Apparently, I'm the other weirdo in the class, and I'm sort of realizing that among that crowd, I wouldn't want to be anything else other than the outsider who DOESN'T think like everyone else in the room.

This has been my quarterly USMB rant. Thank you for listening.

By the way, if anyone's actually interested, I'm comparing Fear and Loathing to Dante's Inferno on the basis of characters, plot structure, and the theme of sin and how it relates to the works' respective times as well as how it affects the human psyche.

Tons, no hundreds of "scholary works" have been adapted for movies. That doesn't take away from the author's original work in any way.


Don't worry, I run in to the odd TA like that myself, not so with any proffs, yet. Too be honest, sometimes I think they're a bit resentful because your ideas ARE different, but at the same time are good. I had a TA who didn't deduct any marks for what I had written, but nitpicked everything else i.e. bibliography, she missed a footnote and so on. I argued with her and she changed my mark. :finger:

Discussion groups can be very painful too, VERY painful. :laugh:


BTW, I attempted to read Inferno sometime ago. :sleep:
Good luck with your essay!
 
Scholarly institutions are intended to be boring, so the real geniuses leave. The academics in control are small minded power seekers, more full of envy and hatred for reality than anything else.
 
rtwngAvngr said:
Scholarly institutions are intended to be boring, so the real geniuses leave. The academics in control are small minded power seekers, more full of envy and hatred for reality than anything else.
Are you one of the geniuses who left?
 
The ClayTaurus said:
Are you one of the geniuses who left?

I have a bachelors. Higher ed is unquestionably dominated by moderately intelligent brainwashed, hate-filled ideological libs. They're so mad that business people make more money than they do.


Oh, and I am a genius, in case there was any question, but I doubt there was.
 
rtwngAvngr said:
I have a bachelors. Higher ed is unquestionably dominated by moderately intelligent brainwashed, hate-filled ideological libs. They're so mad that business people make more money than they do.


Oh, and I am a genius, in case there was any question, but I doubt there was.
BA? BS? What in?
 
SInce we're ranting about schooling, I'll chime in.

This is my second year in Honors English (not an upperclassman yet so I cant take AP), and a large element of the course is group discussion. About 70-80% of the books have been about racism and how we should accept our black counterparts (blacks only, havent heard anything about any other ethnicities...except the Jews and the holocaust, but thats a different story). Everybody claims to be "thinking outside the box" but really they all say the same thing, Racism is bad, accept those who are different, and all that. People have been saying that for 40 years, its nothing new, yet they think they are enlightened philosophers because of it.

So, to counteract this, I go to the other side, sometimes defend something I don't believe in just to get their little heads cooking. For instance, we may be talking about a short story in which a black woman was discriminated against in her workplace. A dozen students may say it was wrong and she was a good lady. Then, I come in and say somethig like, "She wasn't discriminated against, she got the job didn't she? Her co-woerkers hated her because she automatically assumed the white men were racist. So who is the racist here?" I get a lot of interesting looks, but no aggression.

My teacher is an ULTRA liberal feminist, and heads of the Gay Straight Alliance. I write papers about guns and traditional family ideals just to get to her. Otherwise we're on good terms.
 
Dan said:
I don't know, is it still an epiphany if it makes you feel like crap?

Anyway, I'm taking a class right now in which all I need to do is write a paper comparing two books, one that is widely accepted as being canonical, and one that isn't, and we have to argue for the inclusion of the non-canonical one by comparing it to the canonical one.

So, I'm doing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And my teacher has never read it. But, he obviously knows everything there is to know about it, nothing but drugs, and that's it. Which is fine, but the problem is, he's giving me all this crap about how it's not really accepted in the "scholarly community" as anything other than a druggie book.

Now, the thing that really makes me furious isn't that this teacher (sorry, PROFESSOR, he gave us a forty-five minute lecture the other day about how teachers just come in and do their jobs, PROFESSORS have to research, do scholarly articles, and occasionally grace us with their presence in front of a class) keeps crapping all over my idea in front of the entire class. I don't like the guy, he doesn't like me, and he clearly doesn't like Hunter Thompson. What pisses me off is his attitude of, "well us SCHOLARS don't care for these types of books." Isn't the point of the paper for me to PROVE that it needs to be included? So doesn't that imply that the scholarly community does NOT need to be welcoming it with open arms?

And the thing that really REALLY pisses me off is the way that so many people in the class just fall all over themselves to kiss the teacher's ass, or show off how smart they are to the rest of the class. And, really, what does it prove? What does this professor who spends all of his time sitting in classes and offices, writing articles that will only be read by other professors and underlings eager to get a piece of the scholarly circle-jerk, know about life? What does he know about art? Art is not something to be analyzed, it is something to be felt.

And, for some reason, even though it was right in front of me this whole time, this never dawned on me, how full of crap all these (well, most of them) scholars are. I don't know why I am so worked up over this, it's not something as simple as 'oh, he doesn't like my idea' or 'oh, he made fun of my idea in front of the class' because that stuff doesn't affect me anymore. It's just.... I don't know, the condescention, the fear that I'm already like that, or going to be like that. The fact that I have a million times more respect for the weirdo in the class who approached me after class and told me he thought my idea was great than all the straight-A brown-nosers looking down on me because my book has lots of f-words or because, GASP, it's been made into a movie. I don't know. Apparently, I'm the other weirdo in the class, and I'm sort of realizing that among that crowd, I wouldn't want to be anything else other than the outsider who DOESN'T think like everyone else in the room.

This has been my quarterly USMB rant. Thank you for listening.

By the way, if anyone's actually interested, I'm comparing Fear and Loathing to Dante's Inferno on the basis of characters, plot structure, and the theme of sin and how it relates to the works' respective times as well as how it affects the human psyche.

That's quite a comparison, with two very interesting books. If I were your professor I'd be happy to have one of my students undertake such a lofty paper. :)
 
Dan, if I tried to write about what you're writing about, it would end up a stick figure drawing of me clawing my ear off and feeding it to a gerbil. I'm incapable of making those kinds of literary comparisons and conclusions, but I'd love to be able to. It always makes sense when I read it, I'm just incapable of original thought with such things...
 
Yeah, I mean, I can sort of write stuff about that kind of thing pretty well, if I put my mind to it. I just wish I didn't have to.
 
fear and loathing is hunter's dante's inferno....two great books....and themed similarly.......your professor is a twit....sorry that was redundant
 
I had an ephiphany today too.... I'm Batman.

Seriously though, it really doesn't matter does it? I mean unless you want to graduate with some sort of honors and the teacher will cut your grade for it. But then integrity is worth more than being with honors on a diploma.

But what the heck do I know? I've never graduated with honors and probably never will. Cause it seems I can never crack the codes of how grading works.
 
"With Honors" isn't even an option, Avatar. I'm over it now, it's just frustrating to realize the people who are supposed to be teaching you are so full of crap.
 
Avatar4321 said:
I had an ephiphany today too.... I'm Batman.

Seriously though, it really doesn't matter does it? I mean unless you want to graduate with some sort of honors and the teacher will cut your grade for it. But then integrity is worth more than being with honors on a diploma.

But what the heck do I know? I've never graduated with honors and probably never will. Cause it seems I can never crack the codes of how grading works.


you got me beat - I never graduated...cept from HS...and Basic Training...and AIT...and PLDC. That's about it.
 

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