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.