My High School Grad Class
Our next story is Joyce's "The Dead," which I stayed up reading until midnight. I will have to ask Padhraig what it all means, seeing as he's a Mick and all.
Our teacher leads the class as though we are in AP 11th grade English. For one thing, you can find all of our books on any high school syllabus (Heart of Darkness, Daisy Miller, The Awakening) and our conversations in class (I would use the word "discourse" if this were a graduate class) are stilted, in part because the teacher doesn't really want us to talk, she wants us to listen to her dramatic pronouncement about vibrators and the sex life of Edith Wharton. I don't dislike her, but I am not learning anything (except how to pronouce the word "phlegm" correctly) and in our last class, she wrote words on the board to help our little talk. I can't remember what they were because I was refusing to take notes and instead doodling pictures of angry faces in the margins of my notebook and writing notes to my bff to pass after study hall. One thing our teacher did that I wish I had done when I was teaching--whenever someone said something like, I just thought Ehtan Frome was such a wimp! Why didn't he just leave his wife? She would say, "I see. But that means that you wanted Edith Wharton to write a different book. Is that what you would have preferred? That she had written a book where the main character defied every reality the writer set up and ran off into the sunset?" She's a New Critic and would prefer to deal just with the text and also to tell us stories about Edith Wharton had a bisexual lover and wrote incestual pornography on the side.
We are in countdown mode until Friday night's gala extravaganza. I tried on my dress again last night with the high black heels I bought and took mincing steps around the bedroom. I will just have to lean and take little baby steps like someone who has had her feet bound. I can't decide if the dress makes me look like I just threw on a slip and ran out into the night or not. It's black silk, ankle length with straps. It cost $16 at the consignment shop. The strapless bra and shoes were each $50. My haircut was $17. The tiny pads for my shoes came to $5.99. The doctor bill for when I twist my ankle will likely be reasonable because my health insurance is pretty good.
Our teacher leads the class as though we are in AP 11th grade English. For one thing, you can find all of our books on any high school syllabus (Heart of Darkness, Daisy Miller, The Awakening) and our conversations in class (I would use the word "discourse" if this were a graduate class) are stilted, in part because the teacher doesn't really want us to talk, she wants us to listen to her dramatic pronouncement about vibrators and the sex life of Edith Wharton. I don't dislike her, but I am not learning anything (except how to pronouce the word "phlegm" correctly) and in our last class, she wrote words on the board to help our little talk. I can't remember what they were because I was refusing to take notes and instead doodling pictures of angry faces in the margins of my notebook and writing notes to my bff to pass after study hall. One thing our teacher did that I wish I had done when I was teaching--whenever someone said something like, I just thought Ehtan Frome was such a wimp! Why didn't he just leave his wife? She would say, "I see. But that means that you wanted Edith Wharton to write a different book. Is that what you would have preferred? That she had written a book where the main character defied every reality the writer set up and ran off into the sunset?" She's a New Critic and would prefer to deal just with the text and also to tell us stories about Edith Wharton had a bisexual lover and wrote incestual pornography on the side.
We are in countdown mode until Friday night's gala extravaganza. I tried on my dress again last night with the high black heels I bought and took mincing steps around the bedroom. I will just have to lean and take little baby steps like someone who has had her feet bound. I can't decide if the dress makes me look like I just threw on a slip and ran out into the night or not. It's black silk, ankle length with straps. It cost $16 at the consignment shop. The strapless bra and shoes were each $50. My haircut was $17. The tiny pads for my shoes came to $5.99. The doctor bill for when I twist my ankle will likely be reasonable because my health insurance is pretty good.
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