Thursday was a draining day.
Things started out okay: I woke up, took a shower, ate some lunch, did laundry, and set up a time to meet with some Deans for a summer opportunity/internship.
Then I went to Sociology of Culture which was fine until we started talking about "Marked" groups. The professor started off by rattling off a list of "Marked" groups: blacks, women, gays. She asserted that black people were the only racial group made aware of their race. A girl spoke up saying she was the only white child in her elementary school, so she was pretty damn aware of being white. The response: "So? You don't have to think about it anymore."
After our raised hands were thoroughly ignored, we were asked to talk about women. A guy spoke up about unfair discrimination based on a female job interviewee's potential need for maternity leave. The professor said, "But that's just how it is; Women are considered baby makers and that's that!" When the guy asked if men who did not conform to the ideal hyper-masculine identity were "Marked," the only answer given was, "No, of course not. Men are men."
She didn't even pretend to think about what anyone had to say and started a wide-eyed, sarcastic speech asking why our congress was overwhelmingly white and male if America is so colorblind and gender-neutral? "Civil rights movements ended 40 years ago. 40 years is a pretty long time; you'd think we'd be all holding hands singing Kumbaya by now." At this point I could honestly not take it anymore and walked out of a class for the first time in my academic career. It was only 10 minutes earlier than the 3-hour class was supposed to end, so it wasn't the most shocking angry walk-out, but it was either pack up my shit with hands that were literally shaking from my efforts to control my anger or lose my mind right there.
It might seem like I overreacted, but I left out a lot of her actions and comments so that I wouldn't have to relive it. I usually have huge respect for professors and I would have left much earlier if I had even considered it an option. I don't know if she was saying the things she said to provoke thought or to lay down her words as law, but the way she squashed any attempt at a dialog and inadequately answered our questions makes it hard to know what her plan was. I may very well revisit this in a later post to see if I can work out exactly what happened. Mnwhr, you teach: any insight?
After leaving class I had a little time to cool off before FAME! rehearsal, but even that turned out to be pretty awful. I found out Wednesday night that one of the choreographers has no previous dance experience, which explains things like the godawful choreography and the incompatibility of the steps with the music, but also raises a few questions. Actually, only one question: why the shit is someone who has no dance experience choreographing? I still managed to have some fun before and after the actual rehearsal by leaping around with Tyrone, talking smack with Carmen, and making flirty eyes at Joe Vegas, but after the 5th or 6th run-through of the 10-minute opening number I was considering pretending to have Dance Group rehearsal so that I could bounce. Honestly, it's no fun to be one of the best! It's boring and people give you mean stares when they think you're not looking!
To top it all off, my not-even-2-years-old phone died tonight. It was working fine when I reset my birth control reminder alarm at 10pm, but something happened between 10 and 11 as my phone sat by itself on my bed and now the screens do not work. The keys still light up but that's a useless trick when the screen is blank. What am I supposed to do now?
Since I have no alarm I'm probably not even going to make it to my noon class a-freaking-gain tomorrow [which would make 2 full weeks of not being in class due to sleeping through alarms and Tuesday's snow] and I that's definitely not a good thing. As predicted, this was a long week. I'm overtired, I'm cranky, my face is breaking out, I haven't gotten laid in like 3 months, my whole body is sore, I have a headache, and I've had that awful "I've forgotten something of crucial importance" feeling for the past few days.
After a few calming breaths I would like to add that, on the bright side, my Favorite Cousin is coming up to take me out for drinks and dinner tonight.
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6 comments:
On occasion I've had a college adopt a wholly negative stance that was completely counter to their personality to spark a discussion of a given issue, but you always sorta knew that's what they were doing.
But when you get someone who's like that ALL the time, actions must be taken.
college *professor,* I meant to say.
From my inference that you go to an institution in New England, which is fairly liberal, I would think that what she said isn't her normal stance on these issues.I can't tell by one incident alone but I think she was trying to provoke discussion but just didn't do it very effectively and therefore failed in the process. I suppose you will find out more later?
From your post the professor seems to be a very poor communicator. Or she is just an idiot. It is fairly early in the term, so I would give her another chance. Then I would cast final judgement.
As far as the dancing goes tough to have a person who doesn't know what the are doing try to teach you. He or she maybe a nice person but not the right one for this job. Be the better person and try to be as helpful as possible. Who knows you could become the next great choreographer on broadway!!!
hex: it's so weird, some people just LOVE her but i can't get past her attitude.
tf: i took a class [sociology of gender] with her last year and she admitted to being "relieved" when her younger son "finally" got into sports instead of music.
caplyst: i've had her before, so i know she's prone to this sort of thing. and i wrote a long response to the second part of your comment before i remembered that i dont explain dance to non-dancers
That teacher was just bad. Any attempt to spark conversation shouldn't be so negative. If that was just an exercise, she owes the class a huge apology. I'm also amazed how a non-choreographer gets a shot at choreographing a production, thats more mystifying than the crappy prof.
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