I like getting Christmas cards, but as of yet I haven't actually sent any of my own. For a long time this wasn't a problem, because I hardly got any sent to me. But now that I'm getting older, I'm starting to get more cards from friends and family. Which makes me think that maybe I should start sending them too. But there's nothing like ambiguous social expectation to strike me with paralysis. What kind of card do I send? Overtly religious? Offensively fence-sitting? Picture? No picture? Newsletter? No newsletter? Personally, I tend toward no picture and no newsletter, because without any babies, there doesn't seem much point to sending a picture of how we look, one year older, and what would we (again without children) have to say to put in a newsletter?
I was thinking about the possible newsletter while trying to get my office organized this week after the end of the semester. Generally I don't really like to take notes in class, because after a couple of years of college I realized I never really looked at them again. But I feel compelled to keep them around just in case the rare occasion I do want to remember something that I wrote down. I basically stopped taking notes in class almost completely during my master's degree. At the G.O.D.U. this worked out ok because my fellow graduate students were not aggressive note-takers. But here are State University, I got caught in a quandary because a couple of my fellow lit students are aggressive note-takers. They seem to write down every word that drops from the prof's mouth. The most intimidating one, the Italian, brings her laptop everywhere and types as if she's taking dictation. At first I thought that it couldn't be true that actually spent all of that time on typing notes, but after sitting next to here one class period, I discovered that it was true, that she really was taking notes!
Well, I feel pretty arrogant if the rest of the class is furiously writing down notes and I'm just sitting there. So I've had to take notes here, but I usually just write down the things that I find remarkable for either being something I don't agree with at all or because it was hilarious to me. Fortunately I had two classes this year that were peppered with hilarity to enliven the hours spent sitting. After organizing my notes I found a lot of one-liners from these two profs. So for all of you wondering what it was I did this year in school, here are the highlights from the State University notes:
From the Medievalist:
"Now I've made a lot of noise this semester about 'degen'."
"Be Kriemhilde now"
After a particularly creative student translation: "Pardon me for chuckling."
In response to a student's question about daily life in the middle ages: "Oh how I wish I could tell you."
After a student stumbles over "kuhne recken" again: "Did I tell you how I studied Latin vocabulary? Every time I had to look up a word in the dictionary, I would put a dot next to that word. If I looked up a word and it already had three dots, I had to smoke one less cigarette that day. Of course, that was when I still smoked."
From the Young One:
"You don't have to organize your dislikes, just articulate them."
On DuBois "Wagner's Ring - I can never figure out why he's moved by them."
More on DuBois: "You get a lot of really juicy stories about the German university."
To a German student: "Don't racialize yourself."
On his use of the flavoring particle "right": "Right? Well, I'm not asking you to agree with me."
Again later on his oft use of the flavoring particle "right": "Right? . . . When I say 'right' it's not that fascists agree with me."
"How can we sharpen our talons a little more intellectually?"
"Can we move slowly to Mann?"
On a work by Mann: "It came, it was discussed in a few circles and that was it."
Also on Mann: "But has he made a pack with Mephisto? He doesn't know . . . not yet."
"And then the Titanic sank."
When the Italian wasn't familiar with a prime-time network comedy: "You need to know your mediascapes."
After stating that there would be no end to capitalism: "This isn't my 'there's no Santa' moment."
"I really don't go to ESPN bars . . . ok, I actually went once with a friend."
"Have you heard of the bird 'turkey'?"
On the Holocaust: "We have discussed this to death and will discuss it until our deaths."
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2 comments:
Verrry interesting.....I took a lot of notes, even in med school. I think our exams were more off lecture material than they were from texts. My notes were quite brief, however. One of my classmates carried colored pencils with him and took voluminous notes in technicolor. Probably OCD.
I am now trying to picture the two professors you quote. The voice quality and inflection. The pontificating air, swishing of hair, stroking of the forehead, etc. All of the mannerisms that add to the professorial splendor and posturing that accompany the wannabe "Banana Republic Dictators" masquerading as educators on their small stage. What a good idea to make lectures more interesting by quantifying their excellent role-playing monologues. Mutti
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