Irony

So, i don't know why I expected everyone to have done the assignment. I mean, the assignment was to draft your essay and bring it in for peer review, that is "cut and paste" the poem and then write a two page analysis of it after that, make copies to hand out so other students can read it. Seems so simple, right? Well, we got into groups of four, and two of the students in the group only wrote the poem. Excuse me, I should say they each just took twenty random lines from at least ten poems from inside our anthology. The other student wrote two pages of analysis, but that sort of spiraled off into how she was sad about a friend of hers who died in high school.

So, we were supposed to spend twenty minutes on each essay. With only two poems and barely an essay to read, we were basically done with everything in twenty minutes. At least another person wrote something! This is my favorite line from the "essay" that the student whose friend died:

"It is kind of ironic when it says 'the universe seems cramped to you and me' because the universe is so vast and humongous and so there should be all the space we need but there is not."

This was taken verbatim from her paper.

The Dark Gift (working title)

The Lady of Shalott by John Atkinson Grimshaw


I really hope that no one from school finds this blog, especially my teachers.

The first draft of my first essay is due this afternoon. My first essay is a "Patchwork Poem," that is a poem constructed of borrowed lines from other poems cut and pasted to create another poem. I don't know about you, but last I checked that was plagiarism. I guess under the umbrella of MLA format, you can use anybody's work to create your own. Beyond the poem, I have to write two pages of analysis. This means point out the figures of speech, tone, theme, etc. It's so asinine that I feel like I have to dumb myself down to do it. We were only allowed to use poems in the anthology, but I decided to ask if I could use some other poems I like, and she said yes. So, just to mess with the professor, I decided to base my poem on a satanic ritual. Oh, but here's the thing, today the first draft is due. Sounds simple, right? Well, cause this jr. college, "first draft due" actually means "group peer review." So, I have to get into a groups and have these other students (the brightest, ever) read my poem and respective analysis. So special, right? I'll let you know how it goes. Here's my poem:

The Dark Gift (working title)

The chess master says nothing (Rumi, "Sublime Generosity")
other than moving the silent chess piece (Rumi, "Sublime Generosity")
When the evening is spread out against the sky, (Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")
Who are these coming to the sacrifice? (Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn")

To what green altar, Oh mysterious priest. (Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn")
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form (Keats, "The Eve of St. Agnes")
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm (Keats, "The Eve of St. Agnes")
Some picked up stones because they had them. (Nye, "All Things Not Considered")

She loosed the chain, and down she lay (Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott")
Like a patient etherized upon a table. (Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")
Whose stifled sobs of deep despair (Harper, "The Slave Auction")
Battling the hotness or clawing the suffering dust. (Brooks, "The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock")

The cry climbed up the alley. (Brooks, "The Boy Died in My Alley")
It went up to the wind. (Brooks, "The Boy Died in My Alley")
With anguish none may paint or tell. (Harper, "The Slave Auction")
Singing in her song, she died, (Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott")

Her mane falls wild on her forehead, (Wright, "A Blessing"
The Master said, panting as one fatigued (Alighieri, "Inferno")
Just so much honor, when though yield'st to me, (Donne, "The Flea")
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee. (Donne, "The Flea")

The Life and Times of Zachary Jensen

He sits in the back with me. He's proportionally too skinny for the mass deposit of bone in his chin, which is always sprinkled with uneven red hair. His skin is pale, accentuating the acne he, at only 19, is just getting over. He always wears a baseball cap, black socks, and brown utility shorts that end where his black socks start at his calves. When he's not grimacing or scowling at the rest of the class, he is laughing at something only he himself has found amusing: "My fuckin' alcoholic friend won't come to class. That shit's funny, dude." He laughs by putting his left hand into a fist and holding it up to his wide smile as if he were going to breathe into his hands for warmth. His teeth have bits of brown and black in the gummy crevices.

Yesterday, we had to get into groups to review for our test, which is later this morning.

"This professor is fuckin' hard, dude," he tells me. He looks at the pretty young girl in our group. "Ay, where did you graduate from high school?"

"Burrows," she says. She looks at me and asks, "How old are you?"

Zachary laughs, contorting his arm up into his face. "This dude," he's referring to me. "This dude has taken this class like five times."

"Oh my God," the pretty girl says. "I guess that means we'll have to repeat."

"No," I said. "I didn't pass before because I didn't show and didn't do anything. And, I'm 27."

"Oh my God," the pretty girl says. "You don't look 27."

"Right?" Zachary says. "Yeah, he couldn't pass before because he was smoking too much weed."

I furrowed my brow at the lie. "Um, that's not--"

"That's why I dropped out last semester. I only came for two weeks but started partying too much. I haven't partied at all since I've started this class. That's been two whole weeks, man. But this class is fucking hard."

THe pretty girl laughed.

"Wait," I said. I pointed at Zachary. "When did you graduate from high school?"

"2008." Zachary was proud of himself.

"Damn," the pretty girl said. "I feel so old now."

"When did you graduate?" I asked the girl, not wanting to hear the answer.

"2004," she said.

"Yeah," I said. "Well, I graduated in 1999, last century."

"Yo, dude, but you're 27," Zachary said to me. "That's all I can think about is being your age. That's fuckin' cool, dude."

"No, it's not. Take it from me, you should pass this class now."

"But," Zachary said, "if you're 27 that means you've had six years of being able to buy alcohol."

I laughed and shook my finger at him. "That's a very under-21 thing to say. I promise you it's not that exciting when you hit 21."

"Dude, I believe that. When I was 17 all I wanted to do was turn 18 so I could buy cigarettes. I turned 18, and it didn't even matter."

Dr. Witt walked up to the front of the class and said, "Ok, someone come up and write one of the problems you've been doing on the board."

A short Philippino girl walked up with a dry erase marker and started scribbling on the white board. Every once in awhile, she would turn back to her group and bark at them, "Do you see this? Ok, this is the answer. Hey, ohmygod, is this what you guys got? Listen!"

Zachary turned to me, "This chick is cute but I kinda wanna slap the shit out of her right now."

The pretty girl laughed, "She thinks she's the teacher."

The Philippino girl finished the problem. "That's the right answer," Dr. Witt said. "As I was walking around, some of you had this answer. They did back there," he pointed at our group. "But, most of you didn't. Which means most of you won't pass this class. If you can't do this problem, you'll fail the class, cause everything builds off of this."

Zachary put his hand up to his mouth again. "Fuck this dude. He's such a fucking dick. My mom had him. This class is fucking hard and fucking gay."

"Wait," I asked. "Your Mom had him? What did she say about him?"

Zachary said, "He locked her out of the class room."

"That's not nice," I said.

"Whatever, dude." Zachary rolled his eyes. "I fucking hate my mom. I don't give a shit."

"Well," I said. "He does seem pretty doom and gloom. Like this is a part of him that really wants to see us fail so he can say 'I told you so.'"

"I know, dude. Fuck." Zachary looked up at us. "My mom was all," he mocked writing something down, "she said to me, 'I'm going to register you for this guy cause I remember him.' Can you believe that, she registered me for this dude because she knew he was an asshole. Fucking bitch."

There is a Conext

So, I started school exactly and week and a day ago. I don't know, maybe I've gotten into the groove of this sooner than I thought. To be sure, my math class is difficult. I had every reason to believe it was easy from the casual approach I took to school in my early twenties. From this perspective, I can say that it's difficult. I should say it is difficult, but It's doable. I can see my younger self in the other students. The ones who hurry and do their homework before class, who zone out when the teacher is talking about something they think they already know, who fumble for an answer and accidently spill their soda.

Tuesday and Thursday I have both of my math and english classes. Campus is by the baseball diamond where my little brother used to play little league and I'd sit and watch him while I read Anne Rice books. This baseball diamond is across the street from Verdugo Park, where when I was a child my uncle (who is now in prison for vehicular manslaughter) fell from a tree and broke his left arm. It was this same park that my brother's high school band was asked to stop performing because their brand of metal music didn't suit the flavor of the old people at an annual picnic. It is in this park every Tuesday and Thursday that I now, by my self, eat a home made lunch consisting of a ham sandwich, an orange, and a 100-Calorie bag of baked Cheetos. The subtle sounds of this park's past are not lost on me.

Downtown Glendale, CA

Glendale Community College is on a hill. The main parking structure is at the top of this hill. Between this hill and the rest of campus is a clock tower that also serves as two elevators transporting students from the parking lot to their classes. The only way to get to this clock tower from the parking structure is a giant bridge. This is the view from that bridge:

The Extremes

So, this semester is messing with my mind. My Algebra class is harder than I thought. Well, that's not true. It requires a lot more time and effort than I had ever originally thought. Again, maybe that's why I never passed in the first place. The teacher is far from encouraging. Maybe he's trying to weed out the students who are this close to dropping, but he basically tells the class that only a few will make it to the end of the semester. I'm staying until the end of the semester. I'd rather be struggling with an Algebra problem in my dining room than sitting in an office in Woodland Hills fact checking.

In contrast to my Algebra class, my English class is almost offensively base. The struggle with this class will be caring enough to do the work. It's not that I know everything already; it's more subtle than that. Consider yesterday's class, for example: We're starting a section on poetry. To get us ready for the poetry section, we started talking about different figures of speech. But, before we could have that discussion, we had to talk about what a figure of speech was cause the class was oblivious. Seriously. Seriously. We also discussed the difference between voice and tone, which proved difficult when Kristina realized no one knew what the word "abstract" meant. I raised my hand only a few times. I don't want to be that tool who answers everything. Every time the class reacted to an inane question with silence ("What is a simile?" Dead silence.) I gaped in disbelief with bulging eyes.

A few of my favorite moments:

Kristina: Can someone tell me what "theme" is?

(Silence. Me gaping. After a few moments a girl in the back row raises her hand.)

Girl in the Back Row: Location!

Kristina: Um, yes, well, that's part of something we call location.


Kristina: So, can someone give me an example of symbolism?

(Silence. Me gaping. Finally, a hot guy in the front row raises his hand.)

Hot Guy in the Front Row: I think it's something like swastika. It symbolizes Christianity and hate.


(I'm sitting in a group of four. Linda is to my left. She's vaguely familiar, but I can't place her. She might've at one point in my life pissed me off, and I'm just blocking it out. Melissa is to my right. She's 20 and is a Psych major but doesn't want to be a therapist, so she's lost. Across from my painfully small desk is Jarzen, who is a German exchange student and is adorable, which is an illusion, seeing that euro dudes dress like American gay men and all foreign exchange students are excessively polite. We are discussing the imagery in Yeats' The Second Coming.)

Melissa: I think the poem is boring. It's so old. It's not even scary any more.

Jarzen: Philip, what is this word means, "flaw"?

Me: It means something that's wrong with it.

Melissa: Ok, next question. What senses are used within the poem? Oh, that's easy. Scary.

Me: That's an adjective.

(From the group next to us, a semi-attractive gay asian dude who always wears smart cable knit cardigans and hangs out with an ugly Armenian chick turns to us. He's sporting pompous smile.)

Asian guy: You guys, what does "persona" mean?

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

I have been caffeine free since October of 2006. Caffeine exacerbates my anxiety, and I mainly refuse to partake for the sakes of the people around.

I always used to wear "being a student" as an accessory. You know, just carry around the books, tell people I'm a student, and show up for class just to be seen. I've never been a successful student. What I'm realizing is that to be a successful student I have to do two things I've never done before:

1. Work. I've never worked hard for anything. Maybe that's why I never finished school.
2. Manage my time. I've never been so involved with something that involved structuring my down time. Crazy! Truly, these are concepts that have completely escaped my existence. Again, maybe that's why I've come so far.

Last night, I had a dream. I dreamt I'd snuck a can of Coca Cola out of an office. I could tell the can was cold as I held it. Heaven! Not being able to drink it, I just caressed the can against my mouth and cheek, trying to smell the caffeine through the red aluminum. I scratched my teeth against the side, tearing a small shred from the side of the can. Before I knew it, I had sucked and drained the can of all of its contents like I a vampire coming off a hunger strike.

I don't what it means, but school is more stressful than I thought.