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March 31, 2004Embarrassing moment contest!
I suffered one of the more embarrassing moments in recent memory on Monday afternoon, and it's inspired me to start up a new contest. But first, all the gory details...
My Spring Quarter of school was slated to begin last Monday, with a three-hour graduate poetry workshop from 4 to 7 p.m. I got there a bit early and chatted with my half-dozen classmates, all but one of whom I've had in class before. I've never met the professor, but he seems like an affable enough guy. He asks me what I think of "Geek Love," which I had started earlier in the day and brought with me onto campus. So far, so good.
Then, about ten minutes past four, the class begins. That's when things went downhill, and fast.
The professor begins to talk about poetry, but refering to schools of thought and literary theories for poetry that I'd never heard of. He draws a quick diagram somehow fusing poetry and math into something I couldn't decipher.
I feel a mild sensation of concern.
He tosses out the names of the seven books of poetry we'll be reading this quarter. Again, never heard of 'em.
The concern is growing.
Then, he assigns each of us one of the books. Each week, one student will give a 20-30 minute presentation on their author and poetry collection--a formal, academic presentation, thoroughly researched. The date for my presentation falls three weeks from then. On top of that, I need to bring in ten to fifteen poems of mine next Monday, for peer review over the course of the quarter.
The concern is threatening to blot out the sun.
All along, it should be mentioned, the professor is trying to allay the concerns of the non-poetry students in the class. I appreciate his going to the trouble to try and quash folks' first-day jitters, but color me unsoothed.
Still, I'm trying to keep an open mind. I'm trying to wait until the three hours are up before I decide to drop the class. I clearly haven't written or read poetry at volume or level of intensity needed for even a basic understanding of this course--a course which is, I should hasten to add, a workshop course.
Then the professor says he wants us to write a poem. Right there. In class.
Suddenly, my poetic incompetence--which it looked like I had a few weeks to hide--was slated for immediate unveiling. I panicked. I stood up and excused myself from the class. One of my classmates thought I was joking, until I explained to her in no uncertain terms that I was totally unqualified to be there, and that I had to leave right away. I stumbled out of the room, out of the building, and into the late afternoon sun, feeling much like the preschooler who fills his drawers on the first day of school and has to come home early. I'd lasted roughly 50 minutes into my first graduate poetry workshop.
I can laugh about it now, but at the time, I was mortified. I'd never felt so out of place in a classroom before--especially any sort of creative writing class. Granted, I hadn't gone into the class with any idea of what would be expected of us. I just wanted to flex my stanzas a bit and get a better idea of myself as a poet, and instead I stumbled into a class deserving of formal prerequisites.
CONTEST: Describe a situation during which you felt embarrassed, out of place, under-qualified, incompetent, or all of the above. Entries will be accepted until midnight on April 30th.
PRIZE: This huge drum of Kikkoman soy sauce. I'll dole out a few runner-up prizes, the number and quality of which will be so arbitrary as to seem capricious.
Posted by patrick at March 31, 2004 11:08 PM
CommentsOk, this dates back a bit, but it's relevant to the story. I was in 6th grade. Actually I was in 5th grade, but the last week of school was upon us.
One evening, my mother confronted me and told me that Jr High orientation would occur that night. Perhaps my father and I should attend.
So, after we hit the road and arrive on time, my Dad and I sit in on the opening speech. I noticed, though, that none of my fellow classmates had attended and it was getting pretty uncomfortable.
I let me Dad know, but he shook it off. It was only moments later that he asked a question that proved my paranoia.
"So, what do you expect out of your 6th graders?" he said. "Oh, Jr High starts with 7th graders Mr. Dalby. Looks like your son is here a year early."
We were laughed out of the auditorium. I caught major hell from the 6th graders who remembered my face. I hate my life. When do I get to crash poetry classes.
If I win, I would ask for no reward. My girlfriend is asian. I have all the soy sauce I need, thank you.
-
James
Posted by: James at April 1, 2004 12:23 AM
When I was but a young, innocent girl, I worked at a newspaper in college. It was a pretty casual setting, and we were a pretty tight knit group. I was a junior at the time and the end of the year rolled around. I found out that I had been selected to be the editor-in-chief of the paper for the following year, and was very excited to get the job. As part of the job, I would get my own office for the first time since I worked there, and couldn't wait to get in there to decorate it.
Little did I know that there was a little tradition where the previous e-i-c would vandalize the office in some way before handing it off to the next e-i-c. When I went in the office during the first day of my new job, I was confronted with... let's just say very graphic bits and pieces of several adult magazines. The group had done a very thorough job of... decorating my office. It took me weeks before I found everything: between the folders in the file cabinet, taped to the bottom of my phone, in every single drawer of my desk, between seat cushions, etc. In mortifying weeks to follow, at least one person a day would come into my office, reach over, and hand me a bit of pornography and say "Oh here, you missed one." It was at least January of the next year before I felt completely confident that I had purged my office.
Oh no, folks. It gets worse. One day, I was talking to a student who I had been mentoring in one of my previous jobs. I was sitting next to her at one of the armchairs in front of my desk. As I was listening to her, my eyes wondered up casually to the blinking smoke detector. To my horror I saw, taped to the outside of the smoke detector, plain as day, a cut out picture of male genitalia.
My breath caught. I stopped mid-sentence. Do you know how many people had been in my office by then? I had held interviews for my entire staff, I had interviewed important people for story articles and I had hosted campus administrators. How many people had done what I had just done while sitting in that armchair and thought that I, a sweet, innocent, young girl was some kind of pervert? And how could I have missed such an obvious place for almost 6 months?
I turned bright red, trying to keep calm. My mentee asked me what was the matter as she looked up to see where I was looking at. She started to ask, "Hey, is that a--" I violently shook my head, grabbed her by the arm, said I wasn't feeling very well and led her out the door, promising to call her later to continue the conversation. Quickly, I climbed on my desk, ripped off the offending bit of paper (and it was just a bit, poor guy) and tore it into many pieces before throwing it away.
The moral of the story, kids: Check your smoke detectors regularly. You never know when you might be caught off guard.
Posted by: Sam at April 23, 2004 02:49 PM
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