Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Help Me! Help Me!

Today, I hauled my arse out of my warm, womb-like bed to make it to class on time. I used my gas and daily parking fundage in my quest to be and stay a good student. Lo and behold, by happy coincidence and Our Father Who Art in Heaven, all of my classes were canceled. Very goot, very goot. I had lunch with the Artist, Motown Lover, and Mr. GQ and 'twas fun, right?

Then my teacher just flipped the script on a bitch. I pulled up the online assignment and to mine eyes appeared this horrible abombination:

Bernard Bell** has assisted us in considering the ways that contemporary writers are employing and exploring theories of "being." Modernism is a word that has come to stand for a set of "humanist" beliefs: that we live in a world that is knowable to us through processes of reason; that language can reliably depict and reveal the Real World; that there is a Real World; that writers are in control of language, words and meaning. Modernist writers also predicted the rejection of traditions (that were tied to the "unreason" of religious beliefs vs. reason; the agrarian society vs. the industrial age; and the rituals of station and the stationary family vs. mass population movements due to war or economic privation, etc. Everett 's plot is built on the idea that the murder of his narrator's beloved daughter has upset his belief in reason and has also unmoored the meanings of words (look up structuralism for diachronic and synchronic meaning) and even his ability to establish his meanings. Your assignment is to explore the novelist's "proposition" (stated above) by analyzing the author's title, The Water Cure. Consider the title's relationship to the novel AND to the "real world." This work is for discussion in Wednesday's class, so be well prepared.

Okay. I read [half of] the book, and I've been awake the past two classes so I thought I at least sort of knew what my class is on about. Until I read this assignment description. And posed this question:

What the fucking
fuck is my teacher asking for? Can one of y'all smarties break something down for me? I read the above paragraph three times and I'm still here. Confused, but by God, I am here.

**I'm taking Bernard Bell off of my Top Friends on Myspace (if I had one). He wrote the worst textbook known to mankind and I kind of hate him for it. We ain't friends.

2 comments:

Naturally Sarcastic said...

Oh WOWSERS!!!! Ok, sorry but LMAO @ your professor pulling the okie doke!

Woosah on the okie doke being a doozy! And given that I'm having a "case of the mondays" on a tuesday, I figured, I'd try to help.

It reads like your prof just gave a long ass intro to your assignment of "Your assignment is to explore the novelist's "proposition" (stated above) by analyzing the author's title, The Water Cure. Consider the title's relationship to the novel AND to the "real world." But he/she is also expecting you to know what those random literary terms mean as well, because you'll get the luxury of discussing it in grave detail in class!

Good luck!

Lucky said...

Oh WOWSERS!!!! Ok, sorry but LMAO @ your professor pulling the okie doke!

Ain't she? I understand it a little more now but precisely ONE sentence has been written thus far. Let us pray.