Entries in the Category "writing center"
Notes for a Wednesday
Things That Baffle Me
That person who thinks that, on a campus of 8000 students, 3000 faculty members, and God only knows how much non-academic staff, he is the only one who will be going to get a flu shot today. He walks up and down the line, stunned and insulted, seeming to think that if he says dubiously, "The line is all the way out the door?" enough times someone will let him step in. Clearly he is more important than the rest of us.
DUH there's a line. I got here half an hour early, man. How many years have you been on this planet? You wait for these things. You plan for it. You bring a book. I got through an entire chapter of Storytelling in Film and Television.
Also, my arm hurts. But I will probably not get the flu this winter.
Things That Amuse Me
At my writing center hours today, I saw (among others) a young woman from the school of management who wanted some help with an application to a graduate program. She is originally from China, and she wanted to make sure she wasn't missing anything in this essay prompt which asked if she was prepared to be integrated into the "exceptionally diverse" environment of the school. I gave her the secret handshake, which is to say that I told her that "diverse" is a signal word, meaning that the school is committed to having a varied racial profile and that she should expect a lot of minorities. She was like, great, I'm all set!
On Monday, I had a long conversation with a Korean student about the thematic implications of the expression, "Follow your heart." It's always fun to get the shot to kind of explain these things. Suddenly just being born an American makes me a genius.
Things That Improve My Outlook
Life has been exponentially sunnier since I turned in my Toni Morrison paper yesterday. I thought that thing was never getting written.