Chronically Ironic

·My Second-to-Last Semester of Higher Education

So in my infinite wisdom at 23 (or was it 24? Too long ago to really remember now…) I decided to take me some classes. I was almost done, and my second-to-last semester, I decided to just pile it on like there was no tomorrow to make the trip to the awesome 40-hour work week that much shorter. I remember at the time thinking, “No sweat. I can do this, it’s only 16 hours, and only 4 of the classes are senior level classes.”

Someone should have hit me in the face with a brick right there.

Look, I’m no dummy, but holy SHITE. Here is only a smattering of what my ridiculous ass signed up for:

Senior level Renaissance History

Senior level Comparative World Literature

Senior level NAZI GERMANY

Intro to Logic

Now keep in mind two critical things – I was an English major, and thought that all the essays and written tests would be a breeze. Also, and this is where it gets HELLA stupid, I signed up for these classes as electives. Yeah. Like, I could have taken Dog Grooming or Theory of Theory or Hoop and Ribbon Dancing (Intermediate) but nooooooo. I wanted to take classes that would be interesting, challenging, and that would inevitably give me more fuel for my little Knowledge Bonfire I was building. I may not have gone to A & M, but my bonfire collapsed, just like theirs did. It almost killed me, too.

Here is what a typical day in this ludicrous semester was like: If it was a Tuesday or Thursday, I could get up and out of the house by 8:30am and look gleefully forward to taking no less than 12 pages of notes, back and front, on various European kings and their fucking stake in the confusing and all-important, World-Changing Renaissance. On this same day, I worked at my joyous job as a home heath care attendant at the fantastic wage of $6.50 an hour. After completing my rounds with that, I could then try to read an entire novel in my 1970 Ford Maverick with no AC before World Lit, and frantically just try to skim to see if I could fake my way through an agonizing essay test regarding a book I had obviously not mastered in 30 minutes. And then, that same Tuesday and/or Thursday, I could look forward to beginning my evening at about 5pm at the local coffee establishment, where I would try to pinpoint details of wartime analysis that might aid me in my quest to understand the internal workings of the Gestapo before the 7-page essay I would have to write at 7pm. Sometimes I would catch a break here and get to thrillingly take notes on a shitty, grainy black-and-white film regarding said Gestapo. At 9pm, I could go home and try to read the Dryest Book in the World on the Renaissance, or switch between that and whatever horrible novel that needed to be comprehended by the next World Lit class. I usually just made a giant bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy and went to sleep.

There was no drinking or having fun this particular semester. There was no time for socializing, or pining away for cute young men. There was only Faust, Gestapo, Don Giovanni, King Pheunfernegen of Germany, etc., etc. That was just Tuesday and Thursday, folks.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday were less harsh, since I had maybe one normal class that I did not have to freak out about. But then there was Logic. I did so well in Philosophy the semester previously that I thought, “How hard can Logic be? It’s…logical, right?” WRO-HO-HONG!!! It’s fucking MATH!!!! You would think that I might have bothered to find this out before the actual taking of the class. No. I could not, shall we say, make any of the connections you were supposed to make, did horribly on all the tests, and sat mesmerized by the people in the course that amazingly understood everything. I think I whimpered softly to myself after every Logic class, “you’re not stupid, you’re not stupid.” Hahahahahhaa. Yes I was.

Needless to say, this was the most disastrous semester of my educational career, and I have laughed about it ever since. I have the luxury of laughter, and more importantly distance, realizing now that it was over 10 years ago. But no one was laughing that semester - unless it was God, who looked down from His Heaven upon me and smiled to Himself and crowed, “You dim-witted idiot. Well Done!!!” He knew then that this would not be the last time someone bit off more of the Giant Life Meatpie than they could chew. And it would not be my last time, either. I did learn a valuable lesson, however: I can only truly comprehend one shitty novel at a time.

The Short Bus