No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it: He’ll be a thorn in my side

So there I was: biting my tongue, gritting my teeth, and it’s only been 15 minutes. He shows up at the classroom exactly at the time class is to start, but with the wrong keys to open the door.  Ten minutes later, we are sitting at our desks but he can’t take roll because he forgot the student list.  Five minutes after that, we quickly discover this professor – this college graduate – can’t spell. 

Over the next 30 minutes he states that Plato built the Academy while Socrates was still alive, oversimplifies empiricism and metaphysics to the point of meaninglessness, the existence of God is a fact, and many philosophical schools of thought are “total bullshit.”  He’s cursed – including the “F” word – at least 9 times.  Cursing does not bother me, but when a supposedly educated person uses curse words as often as he is, I find myself thinking he’s not the brightest star in the sky.

This is a first for me: a professor that will drive me nuts.   

Twenty minutes later, six students have walked out the door.  Not me, though, I’m stubborn as a mule, not one to quit easily at all.  I figure give this guy a chance, maybe he’s just not making a good first impression.  What can I say, I’m a glutton for punishment.  Three more people walk out, more miss-spellings, more cursing… sigh. Then he assigns us into random “groups” for daily “group work.”  That’s the last straw for me: 25% of my grade is dependent upon these five people who are barely out of the acne stage.  Not for all the tea in China will I put up with my success or failure being based upon how hard these other people work or don’t work, fat chance that I will stay in a situation where I likely will be the one holding up the fort.  I’m out the door, abandoning this ship as fast as I can.

Off and running I go, down the hall to the Registration office, log on as I sit down… hmmm… what to take in it’s place … hey, what’s this?  Creative Nonfiction?  I don’t remember seeing that in the catalog or schedule.  Sounds interesting… who cares if it transfers or not, I need a class and just about all the other 2:30 classes I’ve already taken or don’t fit my plan. At this point, any port in the storm will do for me.  

Of course, I need advisor approval to take it.  Like a chicken with it’s head cut off, I’m running to my advisor, getting the drop/add form signed, meeting the professor, getting a copy of the syllabus and my first assignment, then back to registration where a minor miracle occurs: there is no line.  Class dropped, class added, and glory be, I’m only 6 minutes late for Comp I. 

In a nutshell, I am in this class by default.  What do I hope to gain from this class?  The same thing I expect from every class I attend: to be challenged, to expand my skills, to enjoy myself, to learn something new, to meet new people, and to take another step down the path of education.  A path I have been on for a long time, but one that I know never truly ends.  

Written for Professor Sutter’s Creative Non-Fiction class at Pikes Peak Community College, 21 January 2004.  One of our assignments was to write a creative non-fiction piece about why we decided to take this class, and it had to contain numerous cliché’s – the point of the assignment was, of course, to help us learn to NOT use clichés in our writings and to recognize clichés when we saw them and excise them immediately.  Can you count how many clichés I used in the piece above?