A few years back, I enrolled in a Comp II class during my stint as an English Major at East Central University, and I just knew it was going to be a bummer. I have been writing since I was able, and writing well, at least I think so, for many more years than I care to admit. I figured that this was going to be a blow-off class. I would attend, crank out some papers that I wouldn't have otherwise wasted my time on, get an outstanding grade, and boost my GPA. Looking back, I realize my ego was possibly a little, or maybe outrageously, over-inflated.
My first experience in this class was, of course, the introduction to the professor. I cannot, for the life of me, remember his name, but I can tell you quite a bit about him. My first impression was nerd! I don't mean cute sci-fi addict or bookworm, either. No. He looked like "that guy", the one that would follow you around at parties to wait on you hand-and-foot just to be on the fringes of whatever society you could offer him. He looked like the guy that tries too hard and ends up looking silly at every opportunity. He was a chain smoker. Three or more packs a day. You always saw him outside in a group of other professors, happily conversing about whatever topic happened to come up. He was from New York, loved to brag about his "connections" to famous people, and was a published author of a book he was too ashamed to give us the name of for the first 4 weeks of class. Silly man. He made no attempt at censoring the class, and swore like the proverbial sailor that stumped his toe, and was known for introducing topics that were sure to induce hate-fueled scream-fests in class. He also gave us a new writing assignment every day, as well as a weekly assignment on top of them, plus the 3 "major" assignments that were the majority of the grade. Most of them have been forgotten, due to their mediocre requirements and the less than one hour I spent on them, but, since they have been forgotten, lets talk about the one that I wont forget. It was called "Complicating the Commonplace".
Basically, the assignment was about taking a thing, any thing, and complicating it to the extreme by adding any and all relevant, and semi-relevant, facts about said thing until it stopped being a commonplace at all. Some of the items chosen by my fellow students were Light bulbs, rubber bands, door knobs, and shoe soles. They ended up with papers that read like encyclopedias; so fact based and boring! I vowed "No way"! MY PAPER was going to be outstanding, it was going to slap their papers down in disgust and huff haughtily away. My paper was going to be intellectual, have a story, and grab a reader and refuse to let go until they had absorbed every thought-provoking word. I chose . . . . ready for it? The belly-button. That's right. My paper started with a hyper-descriptive narrative of a belly dancer, followed by a discussion on the medical stand-point of the belly-button. Why do we have it? Why are some people's different? I talked about Barbara Eden's button, and the media frenzy it provoked. Then I talked about the theological stand-point of a belly-button. The Greek's obsession with belly buttons, Omphalos, and etc . . . Did Adam and Eve have them? What did it mean to theology if we could prove that they did. Would it disprove God himself, or make people believe in his powers even more? On and on, and on, I went, until I had an 7-page masterpiece. Nobody was ever going to look at a button the same again! Professor wanted to give us a silly assignment? OK. I was going to knock his socks off and make him wish he could write like me. Maybe I would teach him a thing or two when I was done.
Ok, so if you are still with me . . . you are probably rolling your eyes right about now. Trust me, I am too. Part of the assignment is that class was canceled for two days in order to allow us all the time to have a personal one-on-one meeting in his office so that he could read and offer comments on our papers before the final draft. I, of course, strutted into his office with a smile on my face and a skip in my step. Easy A, right? Well, I got an A, in the end, but not before I had to suffer the humility, the absolute indignity of watching him mark my hard work with red ink. I sat there, each slash of red on my beautiful pages a knife-blade to the heart of my muse, and I endured silently while he read on, and on, and on to the end of my pages. His final remark at the end? "Good draft, but could use a little more complicating". What??? How could you possibly make a belly-button any more important than by either disproving or proving the existence of God himself for all mankind??? Was this man out of his mind? I re-wrote the essay, took my %92 grade (that was significantly lower than the grade my friend got for her essay on the beginnings and uses of the headband), and I wondered who had ever given this professor a teaching degree.
Days went on, the class ended, and then months passed. I realized, after awhile, that I was still dwelling on "the essay", as I learned to spitefully refer to it. How could he not see the wonder that was my paper, the sheer brilliance I had typed in my week of dedication? He had given me proud kudos on papers that took me ten-minutes to write, but on this, my masterpiece, he had scoffed in my face??? It was then I realized. I finally "got" it. I had spent so much time trying to make a masterpiece that I had forgotten what the assignment was really about. That paper was never about belly-buttons, at all. It was, in fact, about nothing but my ego, and the worst part was that it showed. Badly.
The moral lesson here is simple. We can ALWAYS learn a new lesson. You are never too smart, or too good at what you do. It is impossible to be perfect, and when you let your ego get in the way of your desire to learn a lesson you hurt nobody but yourself. Now I can sit back and look at everything around me and I really "see" it. I learned that everything, and everyone, has a story, and that their story is important. That professor, that chain-smoking, pony-tail wearing, 70's dressing, published author of a work known by few, taught me something so profound that it changed my life, and I am sharing it here with you today. Don't ever assume that a situation is below you, or that you have nothing else to learn. You are wrong. There is a whole world out there that is so much bigger than you. Let go of ego, pride, and self-righteousness. Open your eyes and look. You will see that there is beauty all around you and all you have to do is let it teach you to be a better person.
My first experience in this class was, of course, the introduction to the professor. I cannot, for the life of me, remember his name, but I can tell you quite a bit about him. My first impression was nerd! I don't mean cute sci-fi addict or bookworm, either. No. He looked like "that guy", the one that would follow you around at parties to wait on you hand-and-foot just to be on the fringes of whatever society you could offer him. He looked like the guy that tries too hard and ends up looking silly at every opportunity. He was a chain smoker. Three or more packs a day. You always saw him outside in a group of other professors, happily conversing about whatever topic happened to come up. He was from New York, loved to brag about his "connections" to famous people, and was a published author of a book he was too ashamed to give us the name of for the first 4 weeks of class. Silly man. He made no attempt at censoring the class, and swore like the proverbial sailor that stumped his toe, and was known for introducing topics that were sure to induce hate-fueled scream-fests in class. He also gave us a new writing assignment every day, as well as a weekly assignment on top of them, plus the 3 "major" assignments that were the majority of the grade. Most of them have been forgotten, due to their mediocre requirements and the less than one hour I spent on them, but, since they have been forgotten, lets talk about the one that I wont forget. It was called "Complicating the Commonplace".
Basically, the assignment was about taking a thing, any thing, and complicating it to the extreme by adding any and all relevant, and semi-relevant, facts about said thing until it stopped being a commonplace at all. Some of the items chosen by my fellow students were Light bulbs, rubber bands, door knobs, and shoe soles. They ended up with papers that read like encyclopedias; so fact based and boring! I vowed "No way"! MY PAPER was going to be outstanding, it was going to slap their papers down in disgust and huff haughtily away. My paper was going to be intellectual, have a story, and grab a reader and refuse to let go until they had absorbed every thought-provoking word. I chose . . . . ready for it? The belly-button. That's right. My paper started with a hyper-descriptive narrative of a belly dancer, followed by a discussion on the medical stand-point of the belly-button. Why do we have it? Why are some people's different? I talked about Barbara Eden's button, and the media frenzy it provoked. Then I talked about the theological stand-point of a belly-button. The Greek's obsession with belly buttons, Omphalos, and etc . . . Did Adam and Eve have them? What did it mean to theology if we could prove that they did. Would it disprove God himself, or make people believe in his powers even more? On and on, and on, I went, until I had an 7-page masterpiece. Nobody was ever going to look at a button the same again! Professor wanted to give us a silly assignment? OK. I was going to knock his socks off and make him wish he could write like me. Maybe I would teach him a thing or two when I was done.
Ok, so if you are still with me . . . you are probably rolling your eyes right about now. Trust me, I am too. Part of the assignment is that class was canceled for two days in order to allow us all the time to have a personal one-on-one meeting in his office so that he could read and offer comments on our papers before the final draft. I, of course, strutted into his office with a smile on my face and a skip in my step. Easy A, right? Well, I got an A, in the end, but not before I had to suffer the humility, the absolute indignity of watching him mark my hard work with red ink. I sat there, each slash of red on my beautiful pages a knife-blade to the heart of my muse, and I endured silently while he read on, and on, and on to the end of my pages. His final remark at the end? "Good draft, but could use a little more complicating". What??? How could you possibly make a belly-button any more important than by either disproving or proving the existence of God himself for all mankind??? Was this man out of his mind? I re-wrote the essay, took my %92 grade (that was significantly lower than the grade my friend got for her essay on the beginnings and uses of the headband), and I wondered who had ever given this professor a teaching degree.
Days went on, the class ended, and then months passed. I realized, after awhile, that I was still dwelling on "the essay", as I learned to spitefully refer to it. How could he not see the wonder that was my paper, the sheer brilliance I had typed in my week of dedication? He had given me proud kudos on papers that took me ten-minutes to write, but on this, my masterpiece, he had scoffed in my face??? It was then I realized. I finally "got" it. I had spent so much time trying to make a masterpiece that I had forgotten what the assignment was really about. That paper was never about belly-buttons, at all. It was, in fact, about nothing but my ego, and the worst part was that it showed. Badly.
The moral lesson here is simple. We can ALWAYS learn a new lesson. You are never too smart, or too good at what you do. It is impossible to be perfect, and when you let your ego get in the way of your desire to learn a lesson you hurt nobody but yourself. Now I can sit back and look at everything around me and I really "see" it. I learned that everything, and everyone, has a story, and that their story is important. That professor, that chain-smoking, pony-tail wearing, 70's dressing, published author of a work known by few, taught me something so profound that it changed my life, and I am sharing it here with you today. Don't ever assume that a situation is below you, or that you have nothing else to learn. You are wrong. There is a whole world out there that is so much bigger than you. Let go of ego, pride, and self-righteousness. Open your eyes and look. You will see that there is beauty all around you and all you have to do is let it teach you to be a better person.