English Major Ranting

Ah, fall has arrived! This isn't a picture from the campus, sadly, but several of the trees are turning and it's simply beautiful! The Texas girl is finally getting her cold weather, too. Last night when we were coming back from IHOP, it was 35 degrees Fahrenheit.

Okay, so you'd think that three literature classes in one semester would be heaven for an English major...right? Umm, not so much. Analyzing literature five days a week gets old pretty fast. I've reached the point that I can honestly say that I would enjoy the reading I'm being assigned - if it wasn't assigned! Now, if you add on the fact that I have the same professor for all three classes it gets even worse. lol

Don't get me wrong, I love Prof. Ness to death, he's a great prof and a really friendly guy, but when he's the one person assigning me 95% of my homework, it's easy to resent him. lol

In fact, I've come up with a list:

How To Know When Taking Three Lit Classes Is Getting To You

1.) You get excited when the prof says he'll only hold you responsible for ten chapters instead of the twenty you were supposed to read. (Honestly, how did he expect us to get 20 chapters read from Monday to Wednesday?)

2.) You hear someone complaining about having two papers due in the same week and seriously consider slapping them.

3.) You walk into class and don't know if you brought the right book along because you can't remember which lit class you're supposed to be in at this hour.

4.) You go to the school play and immediately start analyzing the significance of the name of the town in the play. (Okay, so it did have significance...the name was Gilead, and the story was about a girl starting over - Balm in Gilead ring any bells?)

5.) You see your prof at the school play and have the urge to turn and walk the other way, since it is Saturday and one of only two days in the week you don't see him. (I added it up, and I see Prof. Ness eight times a week, strictly in the classroom - that doesn't count hallway conversations or passing each other on campus.)

6.) Someone mentions The Little Mermaid and you catch yourself daydreaming about the symbolic significance of Ursula taking Ariel's voice from her in the story.

7.) You read the biography of an author in an anthology and begin analyzing word choices in case there might be a deeper meaning to the bio. (That was when I realized I was cracking.)

8.) You start having dreams (or nightmares) about your prof giving you an impossibly long paper to be written in class.

9.) You freak out the next day when he comes in with an assignment for a five-page essay due in three weeks.

10.) You have dreams about your prof, period. (That in itself scared me.)

11.) You notice when your prof combs his hair differently - and he doesn't realize he did it.

12.) You have your prof's wardrobe memorized and can comment when he wears a new shirt.

13.) You wonder how on earth people can be having trouble in Statistics and Fine Arts when it's so easy! After all, in those classes, simple, straightforward answers are the only thing they need. In a lit class, everything has to be interpretation and analysis.

14.) You catch yourself laughing when the kids in your American Lit (easiest) class inform you that they are changing their majors because they can't handle lit classes.

15.) You avoid all forms of writing not related to school - including blogging and email. The idea of writing when it's not assigned has become almost foreign to you.

16.) Rebelling against doing your homework means leaving the last two chapters to be read in the free hour just before class.

17.) After two weeks of five papers a week, and three midterms in three days, you seriously consider stabbing your prof to death with a sharp pencil.

18.) And lastly, you contemplate next semester's schedule and realize that no matter how much you threaten, you can't change majors - you're having way too much fun right where you are!