Amateur Perfectionist Lessons

In the grand scheme of things, it's pretty easy to bang out a blog post. Nothing in particular to talk about? No problem! I believe this will be my 1,058th post about nothing in particular. It's a topic dear to my heart.

Much more difficult is writing about something - any actual, you know, thing - and, moreover, writing carefully about it. Putting together a first draft. Getting feedback. Revising. Fine-tuning. Revising some more.

At this point in my development as a writer, the revision process feels like this:


Damn it! I just remembered I clean forgot to ask my professor what his take is on double-spacing after a period.

Meanwhile, we had some drama in my other class, at a different institution, neither of which for these purposes I think I'll name in any searchable fashion. An email went out to all the students Friday. My professor, stating it had nothing to do with any of us in the class, was resigning as instructor of record. More details would be given at the next class meeting, if not sooner.

This was rather abrupt.

Being about one degree (if that) removed from high school students, we were excitedly abuzz about this development as the classroom filled today. What happened? Did our professor get fired? Leave in a (Chevy) Huff? How did we feel about the instructional style, anyway? Was there a lack of clear direction? Were the lectures productive?

You would think the presence of an unfamiliar, older person near the back of the room would shut us up. But perhaps lulled into security by having already accepted my middle-aged person into their midst, my fellow students gossiped away.

Eventually the stranger moved to the front of the room and distributed business cards, revealing himself to be the chair of our missing professor's department. "I see you've already heard the news," he said, with a certain sense of irony (irony not being an unfamiliar concept, I wouldn't think, to anyone in his particular field).

I don't know that we were particularly chastened, though we probably should have been. The department head asked if any of us had any notion of our professor's imminent departure, and asked to be forwarded a copy of the email suddenly announcing it. We meekly accepted the assignment of a new professor, under the assumption that what we were getting was at least as good and possibly better than what we'd had. But I have a pang for the departed professor, whom I'd liked. Class started a few days earlier here than it did in my writing class (my writing/Shakespeare professor having been summoned to jury duty), so this was my first face-to-face encounter with the return to academia. It matters to me. It's special! I hope all is well.

But if not, I hope my professor leaves well enough alone and doesn't try to hammer anything out.

Wonderful Things

My philosophy as a writer is best summarized by Franz Liebkind in The Producers:

"You are the audience! I am the author! I outrank you!"

Sometimes my blog gets as many as three hits a day.

This is technically antithetical to what I'm learning in my UT advanced writing class, by the way. But I'm settling into the groove of it now.

A couple of wonderful things have happened in connection with this writing class. First off, well, it just feels good to be there. It's a casual class, couched as an opportunity to expand one's skills in a supportive setting, rather than a trap where points are docked for technical errors. The professor is nice. The other students are nice. It has a vibe, and the vibe is good. And hey, writing is fun - right?

So last week, as we went around the room and introduced ourselves, the professor (who's been at UT for many, many years) mentioned that he's a great fan of Shakespeare, and used to teach literature classes in that subject. I suddenly remembered the Shakespearean plays class I took at UT on my first go round, and realized that my professor does seem kind of familiar. And I asked: Did you teach an introductory Shakespeare class in, oh, I'm not sure, 1987?

He laughed, because that was a long time ago. He's taught who-knows-how-many classes since then, and considering I don't remember him clearly enough to be sure he was the instructor, there's hardly any reason he'd remember. But when I brought it up, there was a big "awwwwww!" from my classmates (who incidentally are, for the most part, younger than my two older kids. But who's counting?).

Well, it's not a big deal, I guess. But I did check my transcript at the first opportunity. You like to know these things, right? My transcript doesn't list the instructor name, but does have the course unique ID, so I called up the English department and asked them if there was any way they could look up who it was.

Second wonderful thing (if the first wonderful thing is that all my classmates said "awwwww," though that might be the third or fourth wonderful thing already depending on how you count stuff - or the 537th), whoever answered the phone at the English department did not so much as entertain the idea of considering my request to be frivolous. Did not even offer it a glass of ice water. No, he put me on hold for about seven minutes, during which time he probably had to descend into the secret UT tunnel system* and pull dusty, moth-eaten PAPER FILES out of ancient mildewed FILING CABINETS. And, third (or eighth or 956th) wonderful thing, when he returned, he seemed genuinely excited to tell me that it was, in fact, the same professor!

Possibly he was just really relieved to see the light of day again.

Wonderful thing number I've-lost-count-(who's-counting) greeted me, upon arrival to the next class meeting. My professor said he'd pulled his rosters from 1987 and found the class I was in. I almost cried!

"You know who else was in your class," he told us all, "Scott Blackwood, who's a very successful writer today, was enrolled in that session. We keep in touch still," he told us. "Really a big name now, he's made a big name for himself."

Well, I'm still fairly young.

These are many wonderful things. I do wish I could take part of my generalized anxious energy about school and transport it back in time and magically kablooie it into 18-year-old Beth, who got a B in Shakespearean plays, but didn't do as well in U.S. History or U.S. Government or anything else that would be considered boring, such as the entire core curriculum. At that point I thought that if you took four years of electives, you ended up with a bachelor's degree at the end; it turns out that there are very few majors for which that's true.

So far this semester I can't sleep on school nights because of nerves. Leaving work at 3 on Mondays and Wednesdays to bike to class, I feel almost physically ill with apprehension. This doesn't help me smell any better when I get there.

It'll settle down after a while. Life is full of wonderful things, possibly as many as three a day. But who's counting?

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*That everybody has always known about forever

Begin Again

First day of school for the 2014-15 school year was yesterday, for Miss Anna Banana Fo Fanna and me. She's in 8th grade now. Me, a little hard to say. Junior-ish. Whatever.

Actually, the UT fall semester doesn't start until tomorrow. Austin Community College, where I have two classes, started up yesterday. But one of those is a compressed online course which doesn't kick off until 9/22. So, yesterday, I took off work at 3 PM, biked up to UT, declared my major as Rhetoric and Writing (not marketing; surprise!), and had my UT ID made.

Big mistake.

Campus has changed a bit since I was a regular there, and what I once knew as the Undergraduate Library (UGL) is now the Peter T. Flawn Academic Center (FAC). It's not a library at all anymore. There are computer labs, and it's where you go to get your ID made. Well, when I was a (cough, cough) sweet young thing, we called the UGL the "Ugly," and apparently this is where karma comes back to bite you in the ass, because when you're 45 and hydrate like a mofo and you bike to school when it's 101 degrees and have your picture taken at the FAC, well, "pretty" is not the first word that comes to mind.

Seriously, I might drive there Saturday and have them retake it.

Anyway, classes did start at ACC yesterday, so I showed up enthusiastically at my Texas State and Local Government class. Instead of feeling self-conscious about the fact that everyone else in class is younger than my second child I should just take shameless advantage of my inside knowledge as a state government employee and try to nuke the curve. This does concern politics, after all.

A young lady arrived early and was sitting front and center 30 minutes before the start of class. She was reading Ayn Rand. So all hope for the future either is or is not lost, depending on where you stand. Do I cancel out her effect? Or do we both contribute, equally detrimentally, to the current Texas political Gestalt? Discuss.*

I fired up the computer tonight to complete my first, practice, not-for-credit writing assignment for this class, and found an email from my Advanced Writing class at UT - one of my upper-division major requirements and a class I'm extremely excited about, although I also have to take an Intermediate Writing class (it's not a prerequisite) and it seems odd to do that one afterwards. I am wondering if I can just turn in my blog and get a B.

My writing professor has just gotten jury duty. Jury duty! So we can't have class tomorrow; it's a Monday-Wednesday class, so no meeting Friday; next Monday is Labor Day, so... Well, I have some suggested reading to tide me over, but I have to say I'm a little disappointed. Are university professors not exempt? Could he not have submitted a written excuse that would have blown the court's judicial socks off? I mean, you know, writing. Right?

He obviously isn't a state government employee.

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*Preferably in German

Death and Income Taxes

So, about mortality - a topic which may have come up before:

How do you handle coming to grips with ultimate oblivion? Is it something you're cool with? See, I continue to have trouble figuring out the whole thing, despite the fact that at this point I have pretty much the whole entire 1980s on my iPhone in iTunes form (thanks, Obama).

My job description now requires a bachelor's degree in "business, communications, engineering, or a related field," whatever that means. It does not, according (initially) to our Human Resources Division, mean a degree from the University of Texas in Rhetoric and Writing. I had to write a justification they'd accept to explain that "Rhetoric and Writing" counts as communications. The fact that I succeeded, I feel rather strongly, ought to be good for at least a few hours' credit. It is not.

I am grandfathered in (despite my abundantly evident youth and femininity) to my job, even though I don't possess the required bachelor's degree. But I can't advance any further in my career. As a cyclist, I know a lot about getting doored, but apparently it's also possible to get ceilinged. Who knew?

The flood of memories associated with going back to school has come as a bit of a surprise. Hello, the dreams about forgetting it was finals day and what the hell is my locker combination again?? Hello, the dreams of forgetting the class schedule until midterms... when I suddenly show up dressed in what I thought was a bath towel, but it turns out was just a washcloth??? Why are all my teeth falling out????

There is much more to write, if I ever get around to collecting my thoughts (which I will most likely have to as I am taking an Advanced Writing course at UT this fall) about the human experience, dealing with concepts of mortality, and how selfies with cats often involve unfortunate red-wine teeth stains. But I'm not getting a grade for this post so bite me.