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November 13, 2002
The thought of Emma is all that keeps me going.
Last night's suckity suck English class was spent profitably making rude jokes about our book with the Irishman who was in my group. He is a riot. Why? The accent. He got obsessed with the description of chickens with hormonally enhanced breast meat (trust me, it's funnier in Irish) and that carried us through the majority of the suck.
Then during the last half hour of the class, she passed out one of her ubiquitous evil handouts. This one was about Coordinating Clauses.
For those of you who, like me, went on strike in your sophomore year of high school when asked to learn this stuff and refused to do any of the assignments because you understood it pretty instinctively, let me assist you. Coordinating Clauses can be recalled with the handy mnemonic FANBOY. This stands for For And Nor But Or Yet.
How many of you can use these correctly in a sentence? Not just an easy sentence, but any sentence, always, forever, since infancy?
How many of you would enjoy sitting through a half hour of muttering and fumbling and out-loud exercises and filling in the blanks?
How many of you are even now wearing the expression (in sympathy with me) that I was wearing then: the puppy who has been good all day and still is being beaten with clubs expression?
I almost cried, for I was hoping she would let us out early.
I retaliated by viciously glaring, and I read my answer out loud in a mean voice.
She did not seem to notice my dismay, nor would she care if she had noticed.
I nearly stabbed her with my pen, but remembered that I can be tried as an adult now.
I could have left the class, or I could have hidden beneath the desk.
I wanted to stage a protest, yet I remained patient because if I get an A I will be allowed to study Jane Austen later.
Posted by didofoot at November 13, 2002 09:40 AM
Comments
hee hee. nice with the fanboy. i love that you put those sentences togehter in the order that fanboy is spelled. so clever. you are a clever trousers.
Posted by: tracy at November 13, 2002 09:49 AM
top shelf, kensington!
Posted by: marc at November 13, 2002 11:23 AM
the worst part is, next week we're going to spend an hour of the three hour class on this stuff. and then we have a midterm in-class essay with which we are REQUIRED to turn in a "brainstorm." first brutal violence, then three's company reruns. first this eagle will peck out your liver, then he will peck out your liver again.
Posted by: didofoot at November 13, 2002 11:59 AM
but then he (eagle) might bring you fast food. (see ye gods by tom holt. it's a good one. and yes, kristen, i KNOW you know that. =)
Posted by: michele at November 13, 2002 03:27 PM
Grammar is the logic of speech, even as logic is the grammar of reason, young Jedi. Now go learn that shit.
Posted by: the ghost of jane austen at November 13, 2002 03:30 PM
but mo-o-om! I know this already! mostly.
"logic is the grammar of reason"?
Posted by: didofoot at November 13, 2002 03:40 PM
Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?
Posted by: the teeny, tiny li'l ghost of jane austen at November 13, 2002 03:57 PM
do or do not. there is no try. MORE YODA!!!!
Posted by: tracy at November 13, 2002 04:03 PM
but still...logic is the grammar of reason?
Posted by: didofoot at November 13, 2002 04:03 PM
logic is to reason as grammar is to speech.
didn't you have to do this for SAT's or anything, analogyfoot?
Posted by: the ghost of jane austen at November 13, 2002 04:08 PM
i'm with you, jane austen.
Posted by: michele at November 13, 2002 04:14 PM
May I point out that you could get into the prestigious Columbia University (which, given, is not here) and many other fine, non-condescending institutions as a "general studies" student, which is the same thing as an undergrad, only not fresh outta high school. You don't need to have a 1600 SAT or wealthy parents.
I know that SFSU is conveniently accessible by Muni, but this shit is wack. It's demeaning, it's a power trip, it's irrelevant whether 20-yr-olds learn this (if they haven't already), it's injurious to the soul. It puts you in a relation to power that ensures either a vengeful or a victimized taste in the mouth henceforth.
Whoops! I'm wearing my Serious Glasses. Wrong nightstand...
Posted by: school is the grammar of submission at November 13, 2002 04:20 PM
whiggity whack, wyatt, in fact.
Posted by: michele at November 13, 2002 04:27 PM
logic IS the grammar of reason: the rules for expression thereof.
i dropped out of logic class, which DQ'd me for any philosophy majors, because i couldn't palate the dryness of If-Then-Therefore without 3 or 4 beers in me. my classmates stared.
i hereby move that "whiggity whack" be spelled sans 'h', maybe even sans c, "wak," in true ghetto (geto) style and as a grammatical fundament of our mutual conversational logic; i doubt fundament's a word; and lady, my clauses are wacky like santa.
Posted by: because otherwise, it's a british political party at November 13, 2002 04:36 PM
two different kids in my graduating class got perfect 1600's on their SATs.
i was not one of them.
Posted by: the ghost of xmas yet to come at November 14, 2002 08:40 AM
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