Forum Overview :: Cabaret Voltron :: English classes and writing.

[quote name="The Cheap Zseni Machine"][quote name="E. L. Koba"][quote name="FABIO"]My favorite was still some 300 pound otaku Japophile girl who insisted on making everyone in her stories Japanese, giving them all Japanese names, and sprinkling kanji phrases around at random for absolutely no reason.[/quote] What was Zseni doing in your class?[/quote] Haha. While that is hilarious, and in no way a tepid hackneyed rehash of ancient and circumstantial criticisms, I was the guy in the writing classes who communed with the professor after class. The professors loved me and cherished me, and in return I wrote them papers about how advertising and photography made me feel, because those were the papers I was assigned to write. However, this wasn't in creative writing class. I took the required English composition classes. Actually, it took a while to complete the three class sequence because I kept walking out of them. Here are two of the writing classes I walked out of: In one, the class was taught by a blowsy fat woman in a caftan who waltzed in on the first day and gave us all a sheet of paper containing information all about <i>her, herself</i>. It touched only lightly on her qualifications for teaching English, and labored very heavily on details about her home, cats, hobbies, and favorite authors (I will only say that Dickens was on it and you can tell yourself the rest.) It took up both sides of the pastel green page. Then she asked us all to go ahead and write a little about ourselves on fresh blank pastel green sheets of paper that she handed out while panting softly - insisting on navigating her floral bulk through the maze of desks to hand each student his paper individually, rather than passing them down rows like any sensible fatty would do. We had 30 minutes to just go crazy on that page! I wrote three or four sentences and waited for everyone else to finish. Really, I wasn't being a smartass. That was all I felt like writing about me, all I wanted to tell her, and above all it was all she needed to know. She came to hover at my shoulder: what are you waiting for, dear? I'm done, I explained. You have another 25 minutes to write more! she replied. That's all I mean to write, I rebutted. She didn't like that and asked me to please write some more, at which point I picked up my backpack and left. Another class was taught by a painfully authentic frump in all brown, glasses, curly hair pulled severely back. This class, she told the assembled students briskly, would involve a lot of <i>Writing</i>. Good, I've taken so many English classes that <i>Didn't</i>. This would make a pleasant <i>Change</i>. She then detailed the major assignments to be done in the term, with chalk bullet points upon the board to assist note-takers, and she had scratch paper in case anyone had come unprepared to take notes, and that such a mistake shouldn't be repeated in this class. We would, over the course of the term, pick two women - friends, family, neighbors, strangers - one old, and one young, interview them thoroughly about their life experiences, and write papers about them. As women. I don't remember if she said that actual part but I mentally inserted it. The professor was expecting to see the raw interview transcription, our personal notes, several outlines and drafts, and, of course, she would be assigning readings to assist us with our work. Anyone who didn't feel they could do all that work was invited to leave <i>now</i>, so the rest of the class could continue. I walked; I was the only female to walk, incidentally, and I felt patronizing feelings towards all the girls who stayed. I have never in my life received what I would consider a serious critique of my Writing writing; I've never received, actually, a negative review of any kind for my Writing writing. Except the Weaponsmith, who summed up the many papers I had written for his sociology and psychology classes one day with "...and at the end you had no idea what you'd just read, but you felt really good about it. It's the best bullshit writing I've ever seen." I have no particular passion for writing. I enjoy it when it comes easily, but find anything longer than a sonnet hard going. I enjoy collaborative writing more than any other kind. I love good amateur writers and I want to meet more of them and drag them into obscure writing competitions, but, alas, they're usually too busy actually writing to waste time with me. Of the many writers at OMM/GA/Caltrops whose work I have read, the best writer is INC and the worst, sadly and predictably, is mrs. johnson. [/quote]