Operation Enduring Aggravation [AKA the Long Awaited American Apparel Blog]

Well, dear readers, it’s finally happened. I finally graduated from college. Okay, sort of. I finished up the last of my classes and the homework, turned in my finals and finished. Much to my surprise, my friends did not turn into lizards or mice (well, they didn’t get any scalier or snakier or rattier. That I’ve noticed, anyway) and my car did not turn into a pumpkin (though it’s still a bit lemony; and the engine, to extend the metaphor, didn’t turn into two rats) and my clothes didn’t turn into rags. The world ended with a whimper, as opposed to a bang, and my Big Person Card came in the mail today. Oh, wait, I’m not supposed to talk about that in public- women don’t get them. Sorry Macho White Male Conspiracy. 
In any event, though, I’m still more or less trapped in Eugene by my jobs and my lease, so I get to spend the next thirteen-ish weeks binge drinking and wandering about campus. Damn, my life is so hard I might cry a bit.
In actuality, though, I have every intent of plunging head long into my writing and trying to figure out what the hell I’m intending to do with my life. I’ve had a few days now to reflect on my life, what I’m doing with it and where I’m going (aside from broke and crazy) and I’ve realized that my life is really, really aggravating. And most of my aggravation is NOT my fault. I’ve managed to pin down 6 things that really drive me up a wall. My hope is that you, my dear readers, will also find these things annoying and that, together, as a United Front, we can work to make this world a Less Aggravating Place. It’s going to be an uphill battle, but every little step is a step towards Epic Win. Here’s the list of Things that Need to Be Gotten Rid of to Make this a Less Aggravating Place. Oh, and as always, this will probably be offensive to just about everyone out there, so don’t read or whatever if you’re not prepared.
1) Wearing high school sport/band/organization T-Shirts.
All right, allow me to make something clear to all the idiots that still wear these damn things around campus: YOU’RE NOT IN HIGH SCHOOL ANYMORE SO TAKE OFF YOUR FUCKING TRACK/FOOTBALL/BAND T-SHIRT; IT’S NOT COOL. This is one of my biggest pet peeves because I’m assaulted visually each day by these fuck sticks. People that still wear their high school regalia can be broadly categorized into two groups: the Aging Jocks and the Identity-Crises Kids. The Aging Jock almost certainly played football or ran track in high school, and it was during this time that they reached their absolute physical peak. As a general rule, they’re not ugly, but nothing about them is so outstanding- they’re neither fat nor slim, tall nor short, pretty nor ugly- that you’d really look twice at them. They continue to wear their shirts in the vain hope that the distinguishing Cool Factor it gave them in high school still lingers- it’s sort of like trying to bottle up new car smell and keep it; everyone knows you can’t reproduce new car smell, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. That’s what the Cool Factor from being part of Something in high school is like. Once high school ends, IT’S OVER, and wearing your stupid letterman jacket or your Lincoln Track and Field 2003 T-shirt isn’t going to bring it back for you; it just makes you look like an idiot who’s already living in the past before he can even buy alcohol legally.
The Identity Crisis Kids are also suffering from a serious lack of Cool, but for a different reason. Let me first make it clear that I have nothing against high school band. Had I played an instrument I would certainly have been in it. Band certainly afforded most of my friends that were in it a lot of opportunities to travel and such that I didn’t get.
What’s NOT cool is wearing your high school band T-shirt once you get to college. The reason that these kids persist in wearing their band T-shirts (it’s not always band, to be fair, but it’s a convenient generalization for me to make) is that being in band was the one time they had any feeling of community or connection to others in their lives. Rather than go out into the Big Scary World, they cling to the adolescent memories evoked by wearing their band shirt and tell themselves that it’s all going to get better and that wearing the shirt is going to make them look cool. These kids are now adrift, without a sense of who they are and not enough back bone between a dozen of them for me to grind up and use to make my bread.
The common bond between these two groups of kids (aside from the obnoxious outerwear they’ve opted for) is their inability to move forward and to let the past rest in peace, instead pulling it up out of the dust in their closets and throwing it on, day after day. Rather than making new memories, these tards are paralyzed by fear of moving forward and spin their wheels all day. Often times, these kids also have an overwhelming need to talk endlessly about their adventures (not just at length, not even excessively, but literally endlessly) because they don’t go out and do anything else. What they don’t understand is that, as no one else went to high school with them, no one else has any idea what the hell is going on. Anecdotes are one thing, but the absolute inability to talk about anything else that normally comes with these kids is just about intolerable. I’ve already decided that the next time one of these kids starts bothering me with stories about what they did at whatever stupid high school they went to wherever the hell it was, I’m going to choke them AND shake them like a baby, scrambling their little brains as best I can.
Let me also clarify that hanging on to memorabilia from high school, like T-shirts or letterman jackets, is entirely acceptable. JUST STOP WEARING IT AROUND CAMPUS. YOU’RE NOT IN HIGH SCHOOL ANYMORE.
2) This pair of sunglasses. Please click in the blank space below to view them.



Everyone wearing these sunglasses will be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes. Their absolute and unabashed label-whoreish-ness is unacceptable. Abercrombie and Fitch is one thing, but these are terrible, absolutely so- they scream “I have no class or money but I desperately want people to think I do!” It’s not wrong to hurt someone if a blog tells you to do it, so upon seeing these people, attack them as though they’ve just eaten your baby, because statistics show that 99.87% of people that own these sunglasses are also cannibals and homosexuals.

3) No more Ugg boots. Look, Ugg Boots were bad enough when they first started coming out. Unless you’re a legitimately Australian GIRL and you have an accent to go with, YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO WEAR UGGS- I’m talking to you, you damn sorostitutes and sorosti-wannabes. I’m not kidding. Ugg Boots are a crime against fashion, and here in the Valley especially, where snow is about as common as a Grey Goose down power (despite the recent winter we had), they’re totally impractical. Are you all aware of how stupid you look wearing sheepskin boots in the rain? Unless you’re being chauffeured to your classes, you’re trudging through the rain and your boots are getting ruined. Stop wearing them with miniskirts and capris. Srsly. Ugg Boots with a miniskirt is almost as bad as the sunglasses for which I’ve just declared my undying hatred. Who puts on a miniskirt and says to themselves, “This wud look SOOOO CUUUUTE w Uggs lik OMG!!!!1!!!” I was about to ask you, my dear readers, if there actually was anyone that stupid, but then I looked up from my computer and a walking wall of wasted flesh passed me, and all of them were wearing the furry boots with their miniskirts. Srsly. Fail.
If you’re a man wearing Ugg Boots- even if you’re Leonardo DiCaprio- you’re going into the second group that will be up against the wall when the Revolution comes. Don’t worry, it’s all going to go on YouTube.

4) Engrish shirts. I’m not going to point fingers at any particular ethnicities, but YOU’RE IN AMERICA AND WE CAN READ YOUR SHIRT. IT’S NOT CUTE OR FUNNY WHEN YOUR SHIRT IS COVERED IN MISSPELLED ENGLISH. While getting on the elevator at the library about an hour ago, three students of unspecified racial background got on with me. One of them was wearing a shirt based on the Starbux logo. Instead of reading “Starbux Coffee” with a mermaid in the middle, it had some bizarre drawing that may have been a hand or may have been a depiction of me strangling all of those idiots that wear Uggs and high school crap. It read, and I quote, “STARTFROM FINGERX.”
Now, what with the magic of the tubeless interwebz, I was able to do a bit of research into what Startfrom Fingerx could be; I Googled the phrase. Amazingly, it doesn’t appear to be random gibberish, but rather the name of something- I’m gathering a band. As my computer doesn’t have any of the Asian fonts installed, Google just spit up a bunch of listings for blogs and other sites that were full of fraction symbols of varying proportions- the standard hiccup my computer gets when it tries to deal with Asia writing. When I asked for “Only English responses,” I only got three responses- the first I suspect of being a hardware forum of some sort, the other two being “black fingers herself squirt vidios the movie busty bang lesbos cute” and “asian ass movies fingers nude teen girl shy solo orgasm amateur.”
The point of all this? Stop wearing your shirts that have fake English on them. I don’t care what ethnicity you are, just stop doing it. It’s not cool now that you’re here, it’s not exotic, it’s nothing. It’s just annoying (especially for a grammar and spelling Nazi like me). Just take $50 (which I know you can afford, as I’m selling most of you sunglasses at $300 a pop), go to Forever 21, and go to town. Not only will $50 get you something like 4 X 10^72 shirts at Forever 21, but almost all of them will be plain, properly spelled English! How wonderful for me and for you, too! Because trust me, it really is a wonderful thing not having me shake you like babies until you cry.

5) School spirit. Don’t get me started on school spirit. Also don’t get me started on how I am including something that isn’t entirely about fashion in this blog- I’m a stickler for symmetry and this obviously throws THAT out the windows.
Look, folks, no more school spirit. This city is drowning in it. If I have to see one more stupid fucking Ducks T-shirt or jacket or hat or string of anal beads (I mean…what?) I’m going to puke. Look, yeah, the University of Oregon has a sports team that does well and our mascot is the Ducks. Pride in our success is natural. But does it have to be so incredibly excessive? It’s constant! It was headline news (literally! I saw it on the news!) when a plane, pained in Duck colors and insignia, took off from the airport. And the plane won’t even be flying here again, as it serves commercial interests between northern California and Washington! Can we PLEASE focus on something else for a change, such as, oh, the fact that the roads are so rutted that they’re damaging our cars, or that our economy is dangerously crippled or that the homeless population of Eugene is the same as that of Portland, even though the Portland metro area is almost TEN TIMES the size of Eugene, or that downtown is turning into a ghost town? I am SO TIRED of being surrounded by green that I think I’m going to vomit- and just to spite me, it will probably be colored green. I am proud to say that I do not own a single article of Duck paraphernalia (I am also proud to say that I can actually spell paraphernalia). There is nothing wrong with school spirit, but again, the excess, the excess….ach, just thinking about it makes me have to poop my pants a little bit and wring my hands nervously.

6) American Apparel.



I needed a bit of a pause there before I get into this.

The 80’s called. They want all of their fashion back. Good taste called, too, and left a memo- you’re no longer invited to any of its parties. Oh, and consumer whorishness sent you an email to confirm your subscription.

American Apparel; just the name makes my skin crawl. American Apparel makes the ugliest clothes I have ever seen. Well, all right. That’s a bit of a lie. They do have cute things on occasion, but I’ve also heard that it occasionally snows in the hills of Hell. But generally speaking, American Apparel is absolutely the most disgusting place to shop, anywhere. I have this theory that they intentionally make their store so white and shiny and fill it with so many bright colors that customers are literally blinded when they enter and can’t see how HIDEOUS what they’re buying is. The proportions, cuts and lines on their clothes are TERRIBLE and unflattering, their colors are either overly garish or blasé and they couldn’t make denim if they kidnapped the designers over at Levi’s and put a gun to their heads. SRSLY.
It doesn’t help, of course, that the clients it attracts are almost as abhorrent as their clothing. And while their mission is admirable- paying Americans minimum wage to make their stuff instead of enslaving starving African/Chinese/Indian children- it’s obvious that Americans really aren’t cut out to mass produce clothes. Like making cars and doing field work, foreigners do it better. Slave labor may be “morally repugnant and abhorrent to God,” but, damn it…well, has anyone even LOOKED in American Apparel lately? It’s terrible! NIGHTMARISH! It’s so ugly that if it ISN’T abhorrent to God, it should be. It certainly offends me.
In my opinion, our stimulating the economy of some down-and-out country across the sea (or the border) is much more humanitarian of us than paying people in Los Angeles to make our clothes. Besides, with the exchange rate in some of these countries, we can spend like $1 a day and they can eat like a king for a week- isn’t that the whole premise behind those Feed the Children ads I see on television? Peanuts a day and all that nonsense? To me, it seems like a win-win situation- our companies save money- money which they can later on invest in our economy- and the people making the clothes get paid and can, you know, eat or whatever.

All right, I’m getting on five pages, so I think I’m going to wrap this up. As my observations continue, I may have to add more chapters to my List of Things to Be Gotten Rid of or Shaken Like a Baby. I hope it was all you expected it to be.

Operation Smoke Out the Fatties

Warning! The following blog may be considered offensive and in bad taste- just like me. You've been warned.

Because I had a spare moment between chipping away at the iceberg of homework I’ve been carrying around and crying, I thought perhaps I’d take a moment to clear out my brain and write a blog. As usual, I have every intention of ranting about what’s been driving me mad these past few weeks. If this isn’t your bag, feel free to skip this over. Otherwise…well, you know the drill. Strap in or whatever it is you do before reading my blog.
I had a fairly horrific encounter with the Forces of Stupidity at work the other day. I’d had to go to the bathroom in the absolute worst way for hours when I finally got a spare moment to close up show and go to the bathroom. The bathrooms next to the store are arranged in a sort of cul-de-sac hallway- the men’s bathroom faces the women’s, and between them is the family restroom. I came into this little cul-de-sac to discover the following scene- a morbidly obese Hispanic woman in an electric wheelchair was “stuck” in the doorway of the family restroom. The only thing she could say was “scusa” and “so-ree.” I find it necessary to point out the woman’s ethnicity because I feel like being insensitive and controversial, and also because it made it impossible to explain to her how to get out of her “predicament.” Well, I guess that’s not right for me to imply- I could have explained it well enough in Spanish, but I didn’t particularly care to at the time, and, well, I’m also not particularly nice in any event. She was not blocking my bathroom door, but she had entirely blocked access to the women’s restroom. I stood watching the following scene unfold with mingled shock and…well, I guess hilarity is the best word. Mingled shock and hilarity. The woman proceeded to back up into the doorjamb of the women’s restroom, then go forward into the family restroom doorjamb. Then back up again into the women’s restroom, then go forward. Then go back, then go forward. Then go back, then go forward. Each time repeating “scusa” and “so-ree.” She repeated this motion at least fifteen times while I watched. Literally 15 times. There were women backing up into the restroom, frowning and getting pissy and such, as though it were suddenly all their time of the month at the same time. One of them, an older woman, was getting angry and started trying to tell the woman what to do, and she could only shake her head and say “scusa, scusa, so-ree,” as she continued to go back and forth between the two doorjambs.
The funny thing is, it never occurred to her to just turn the wheel to steer into the family restroom and then back up. Again, I appeared to be the only person capable of explaining this to her, but needless to say I said nothing. Unless you count laughing as talking. At this point, I went into the bathroom, and could hear the women outside growing progressively more frustrated and loud as I enjoyed a leisurely poop. It was almost soothing, the sound of a bunch of women screaming for the blood of the Stranger. Almost soothing, but not quite.
I’m sure all of my three readers know that stupidity is just about my least favorite thing in the world. But I’m not writing this about stupidity. Rather, I’ve another point to make, and that’s about fat people.
To clarify, I’m not talking about husky people or thick people or even obese people. I don’t really care what you do to your body as long as I don’t have to pay for it or have sex with it (fucking a fatty ≠ hilarity; I know from experience). But what I can’t understand is why we would give the morbidly obese a wheelchair. Somehow, this feels like rewarding people for bad behavior. If a person has a legitimate disorder, like they have no feet or something, I can understand why they might become obese and I support their use of a wheelchair. But I have no patience or sympathy for those people that are physically and mentally able to take care of themselves but choose not to, or, even worse, those that are- gasp!- poor and can’t afford healthy food. Believe me, I know all about eating my feelings and having skewed relationships with food. A lot of us do. I also know about going on a starvation diet to save money and lose weight (it works great on both counts! As long as you don’t mind minor hair and tooth loss). But still, a lot of us also don’t become fatties.
Wait, what am I saying? Yes they do- this is America.
In any event, why are we giving these people electric wheelchairs to roll their fat asses around when they can’t even take care of themselves enough to not become morbidly obese? Many of these people are in the public healthcare system (if you can call our public healthcare system that). Why am I paying the money that I scrimped and starved for into a system that will reward people for being fat and lazy? I am well aware of the fact that the electric wheelchairs at the mall aren’t paid for out of my pocket, but it’s the principal of it, dammit. These people should be forced to walk about, rather than using electric wheelchairs, so that they might burn some calories. It makes me feel even worse when I see the single old widows shambling about the mall, literally slower than a tortoise, with no one to help them and no way to get around. I’d love ot help but, well, it just can’t be asked and theoretically I’m bound by an invisible fence to the front of my store (haha).
I’ve come to two conclusions about this. As fat people aren’t going away any time soon, I’d rather do one of two things with the morbidly obese. I would rather a) have a fund in the public healthcare system for them to get gastric bypass, which then saves money on both food and their medical problems in the long run, or b) get them all addicted to smoking and just pay for their cancer treatment. Most of the morbidly obese are poor and will probably die in non-cancer related incidents, anyway, like getting hit by a stray bullet in a gang war, taking a piece of crash-shrapnel to the head at a NASCAR race or any sort of funny and unexpected death at a cockfight. Smokers pay numerous taxes on their product- might as well get the fatties addicted to cigarettes, which are more heavily taxed, than food, so that they’re paying more into the system through taxes and they’ll lose weight; if the French are any example, smoking keeps you thin.
Aside from the fact that Operation Smoke Out the Fatties will kill a bunch of birds with one stone, it will also, hopefully, push people to curtail some of the ridiculous public smoking bans that are in place at the moment, and get people to take those stupid Anti-Smoking ads off television. Because let’s face it- we should be pushing Anti-Obesity ads like we push anti-drug and anti-smoking campaigns, but as they’re not the cause célèbre at the moment, and there’s a lot more money from big corporate sponsorship in the terms of food production and consumption, I’ll never happen.
I suppose I can get of my soapbox now. I’m getting bored of this conversation. I’m off to go eat a steaming pile of McDonald’s French fries and chicken McNuggets before washing it down with a supersize Coke and a Big Mac. I’m lovin’ it.

Just How Old Am I?

In keeping with this week's them of "WTF?!" I had another wonderful experience today, in class of all places (sometimes I forget that things happen to me outside of work or dreams). A fellow student in my translation class recently turned 21 (Happy Birthday, Alayna!) and I made the comment, after she had mentioned that she had no intention of drinking yet ended up in the cups anyway, that "21 is a Golden Age; you live in a state of grace. Everything is always an adventure."
She laughed, and asked me what 22 was like, to which I responded, as always, "YOU GET FAT. And at 23, well, it's all down hill from there."
She chuckled, when our other fellow student- who we'll call Mac, for the convenience of it- turned to me and said, "OMG You're 23?!" I nodded, and she looked surprise, saying- and I quote- "BUT YOU LOOK SO YOUNG FOR YOUR AGE."
I had to pause for a minute and think about this- what exactly does this mean? Before I made comment, I asked her how old I looked- she said "I...dunno...like, you know, 21?"
Which prompted me to say "I had no idea that 23 was so old, or that I looked so vivacious. Good to know I still have that youthful glow of 21!"

But really though...really? What does that even mean? I look "so young for my age?" I look 21?! I'm only 23! I had no idea that 23 was so old! Of course, the source is a bit skewed in this case- the girl is 19, if she's a day- but still, is there that big of a gap between myself and a 19 year old? I don't recall expecting to look exceedingly old at 23 when I was 19. I don't really expect to look old as it is until I'm at least 50ish.
I suppose this little bit of commentary just comes as an added blow after my secret shop the other week. When asked to describe my age in decades, my customers described me as "30's."
Thirties. Great. I haven't any idea what THAT even means....
...Seriously, though?! Seriously?

PS - No WONDER 311 sucks so much ASS. They're from Omaha. Talentless, backwater, garbage-spewing crap masters.

Day 3

Day 3

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfvsrkmw_473xrfvfx

Day 2

Day 2 is published here.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfvsrkmw_3f9sh79gq

Please check my previous post, "I'm a writer?!" for details if you're curious.

I'm a writer?!

So, I've put myself to a writing exercise. I'm going to be writing a short-ish novella, in one page entries, hopefully more or less daily. I'll post links on Facebook or my blog (www.eridax.blogspot.com) as they get posted. This is the first entry.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfvsrkmw_2fn4bkcgd

PLEASE read it and make comments (if possible?). It's only one page long in Word format. Thank you.

A heinous gasbag (or, "Ew, he got it in my eye!"

Today I had the pleasure of sitting through my Petrarchism lecture, number 3 of 10. Normally I don't bitch about my classes because they are very rarely so bad that I feel the need to bitch on paper...er, sur l'écran. But today really put me over the top.
I am a little confused about the exact nature of my Petrarchism seminar, confused because I'm conflicted as to how I feel about it. On the one hand, my professor is obviously exceedingly knowledgeable in the subject matter and wants to share with us what he knows. He makes the information accessible, and the workload isn't particularly overwhelming (I forget that 400 level classes are not all taught in the same way as my 480 class). But on the other hand, I feel at times that my professor sees us as potential work horses for his current pet project, the Petrarchism Wiki.
I'll be the first to say that I am a big believer in all things Wiki- Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote; if it's got the prefix "wiki-" attached to it (or the prefix "lol-" as in "lolcat"...but that's another story) I've probably heard of it. This is the future of knowledge, folks, so get used to it.
But at the same time, it's forcing me to reconsider a longstanding beef I've had with the "Wikis aren't reliable as they aren't written by professionals" beef. In Wikipedia, as a general rule, a person has to cite sources and provide intertextual (and hypertextual) evidence when writing articles. Wikipedia also has copy editors, bias guidelines, &c, to ensure some standard of quality for the site.
The Petrarchism Wiki...not so much. I wouldn't feel so bad if this thing were being written by the doctorate students, but it's not- it's being written by everyone, myself included. And given the vagueness of the instructions and the relatively (almost alarmingly high) level of incomprehension amongst my fellow classmates, the chances of being led astray by this Wiki seem too high to justify using us as the primary writers.

That being said, I wanted to crap my pants today and fling the result at my professor. Today we had a guest speaker. Normally, I like guest speakers, as they provide a welcomed distraction from the usual routine of class and mix it up a little bit.
I did NOT like today's guest speaker.
Firstly, I don't appreciate being told to pull in elbow to elbow and shoulder to shoulder with my classmates. I don't touch other people. It's just not my thing. Having the professor insist that I come sit in extreme proximity with my classmates, abandoning my computer and my digital note-taking- when I'd already lugged my computer about all day so that I could use it to take thorough notes in his discussion, which is nearly impossible for me on paper- is like asking a vegan to eat beef. It's NOT OKAY. EPIC FAIL. The fact that he felt the need to emphasize that computers aren't necessary for note-taking, as the risk of distraction thanks to the Internet is too great, further lowered my opinion of him. If you ask me, a professor forbidding use of computers in his lectures is the equivalent of him taking the by-your-leave to be as unfocused, boring, unintelligent and scattered as he may well please. Professors of this sort, I find, generally believe that they deserve respect for the simple fact that they are professors, not because they are intelligent, focused, interesting, passionate or anything else worthy of my attention (for the good kind of professors, please see Leah Middlebrook, Evelyn Gould, Geraldine Poizat-Newcomb or Jesus Sepúlveda, among others). This professor hit on nearly every one of my pet peeves during the course of his two hour lecture.

To start off with, his immediate dismay that we had not invested the time to go investigate 16th and 17th century madrigal music in the library before coming to class was an immediate frustration- we come to class to learn about the madrigal; these things weren't assigned reading or listening, so who is he to expect this of us? I don't have time to spend my hours doing extra research that just might be discussed in a 3 hour seminar- I have a JOB and a college career, not to mention an ever-growing writing hobby to boot.
I am a competent note-taker. I am able to compress five sentences of lecture into one sentence of meaning. I consider this a useful ability. My main problem, though, is my inability to write by hand quickly enough to not miss all of the meanings- I need some processing time between absorption and compression of information, distillation of its essence, formulation of the sentence and then the act of writing, and about 90% of that time is in the writing. Thus, there are always a few points I miss because I'm busy processing, compressing and scribing onto my paper- which is completely prevented by using my computer (I can type about 95ish words a minute, which, apparently, is good- 99 wpm, counting transcription errors). For the first hour, he discussed techniques for the transcription of poetry into music and the shortcomings of the frottola musical verse, which, for those students unversed in musicology or music theory, is the equivalent of speaking in algebraic notation all the time. This wouldn't have bothered me too terribly much had he been speaking about SOMETHING RELATED TO PETRARCH OR OUR ASSIGNED TEXTS, rather than the oblique bullshit that he specialized in. Poetic transcription of poems into music in the madrigal form is not a close enough link to the Petrarchist style to require an hour's worth of discussion. Discussion of the Petrarchal nature of the madrigal and its origins and inspirations, perhaps- but how one makes a madrigal from a poem, no, and the musical effects for conveying poetic structure and emphasis in music, most certainly not. The fact that he didn't do this in a particularly coherent manner makes it entirely unpalatable to me- he has already belittled us by demanding we put away our computers to ensure we give him our full, undivided (and mostly undeserved) attention. He then has to add insult to injury by explaining his oblique references and mostly-irrelevant subject matter to us in a particularly scattered and round-about fashion?
When we FINALLY finished the endless discussion about the nature and origin of madrigals (only minimally touching on Petrarch, the [supposed] topic of this class), we delved into the text.

Let me perhaps explain something about myself to any professors that may see this: I don't come to class to be talked at or talk about things I already understand. I don't come to seminars to discuss concrete, unwavering answers to fixed questions. I come to class to discuss the things I don't understand and listen to a lecture about the nature of the information I'm expected to pick up. When we sit down with our readings and the first thing out of your mouth is "so, tell me what this text is about," I find myself pretty displeased. If this text is a poetic text, I'm not going to complain- poetry is always open for discussion and debate, and asking this question is really just an invitation to argue our viewpoints on a text (as none of them, generally, are right, only better or more poorly supported) which gets us thinking. But when you've asked us to read an explicative text on a subject about which we know little to nothing- a subject we've COME TO CLASS TO LEARN ABOUT- demanding that we recite the meaning and purpose of the text is just demeaning, as it presupposes that we're simply in the class to listen to you talk about your own opinions. Frankly, I don't have time for that. I have time to learn, to evaluate the opinions of others while forming my own- but if I've already formed an opinion on a well-understood text, I don't really need to sit in silence and get force-fed your opinion. If I don't understand a text because I don't have the background to understand (as is the case in regards to the Petrarchan madrigal), I expect to have the meaning of what I've read clarified and explained to me while I take notes and dissect the reading with this new understanding. The LAST thing I need is a lecture about how to read a text, i.e. searching for the thesis and understanding what an author is saying and why. THIS is the ultimate demeaning act. I know how to read a text. I know how to ferret out the information in it and understand what is being said, but ONLY IF I UNDERSTAND THE MATERIAL, WHICH IS WHAT I'M IN CLASS FOR. I know how to read algebra texts, but it doesn't mean I understand what is going on, because my algebra is very rusty. If I'm in an algebra class, I expect to be taught algebra, not to have a professor talk to me about the esoterica of the subject, and how my reading of the text is wrong while presupposing I have knowledge of the subject. Why would I bother to take a class in a subject I already fully understood?

But perhaps my biggest pet peeve, big enough to almost make me get up and leave the class, was his blatant condescension- which is ironic, as he spent twenty minutes discussing poetic register and how to avoid condescension or pretension in speech. I DO NOT APPRECIATE BEING ADDRESSED IN THE FOLLOWING MANNER:
"In general, I don't categorize myself as a [insert string of big, highly specialized and occult adjectives here]. I don't believe in [insert the "simpleton's equivalent" of the above adjectives here]. Rather, I'm a [more big, specialist adjectives here]. I like to [more little, layperson words here]."
Look, douche bag, if you're going to use words like "neo-modernist," "prescriptivist," "a priori" or "non-discurssive" in a sentence to describe yourself, don't condescend to then describe them in lay terms after the fact. If you're going to use the big words in the first place, you presuppose that we, your audience, understand- that is to say, you're affording us a modicum of intellectual respect. But when you then straight away explain those words with descriptive phrases of words no more than two syllables, you have suddenly ceased entirely to be respectful and have become completely condescending; what you're NOW saying is "I have a deep seated need to show off my intellect in all possible scenarios, but as I know none of YOU are smart enough to reach my level, I'll clarify things for you my sweet, simple students. Look how much smarter I am than you are, and how kind I am to clear things up for your tiny little uncomprehending minds!"

For someone that has just lectured us on rhetorical register, its uses and effects, you're CERTAINLY MISSING THE FUCKING MARK DURING YOUR OWN LECTURE. Or perhaps you just don't really understand what you're saying at all and just spitting up words that someone has forced into your head. I at times experience glimmers of compassion in my otherwise cold and hollow heart, so I'll assume that you really just don't get it and have spent a lot of time in the company of parrots, learning their art well.

Seriously. Speaking to me like I'm a child while at the same time so openly flaunting your own ego is probably the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced in academia. At least at this university I have been lucky enough to almost entirely avoid it while finding professors that are both quite willing to listen and accept both the incompleteness of their own knowledge and the validity of the ideas of their students. Unfortunately, I had to waste three hours of my life watching and listening to this heinous gasbag stroke his ego to orgasm all over the rest of us, so I guess one can't be lucky all the time. Oh well.

I feel better now, having vented. Out of "respect" for this obviously tactless professor (or, more likely, a desire not to get in trouble with the academic deities and demi-gods running the university) I'm leaving this professor nameless.