Venting, Steaming

I can't seem to go too long without an angry post these days. Let me just say that this past day was my half birthday. Halfway through 20?! Yes, I do remember those things. It's a shame that the few dates in my life that I consider special have to be so crappy. For the last two years my birthday has been during or days before final exams, and my half birthday this year got me fuming with anger.

This Professor made a return appearance, and while an encore could have been his chance for redemption, he's gone in the other direction and then some. See, it's time for us to start picking our final paper topics in his class. "This is your only big paper in the class, so I expect it to be very good," he sneers at us.

I thought I was on top of the game and suggested my topic to him early last week. He wrote me back to let me know that he wasn't "sold" on it, and told me to do more research. I rethought the topic and suggested it from another angle. Still not "sold" on the topic. After a third try, he e-mailed me and told me to see him, which I did, today.

"Blah, bale, bale." I repeated everything I e-mailed him and tried to explain myself and then he said the same things he wrote in his e-mails and again repeated that I would need to "sell" him on the topic. What is this selling business?! I felt like I was trying to pitch a cheap product to Wal-Mart. I gave him a particular example, which by the crumpling of his nose, he apparently didn't like. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes, I read it somewhere. I'm not 100% certain, but I read it."

"Well," he sneered, "I have a friend who's an expert in that field and I could ask her because I don't think you're right."

What a disgusting and stuck-up way to talk to your students!? Obviously he's all edumacated and has lots of scholarly friends he can wave around in conversations, but to engage your students in some sort of scholarly debate on your terms just to prove them wrong? That's a power trip. The deck's stacked, we know you'll win. It's dumb. Well he said all these things about my topic, which I didn't really care for but ultimately it became a self-fulfilling prophecy because after 10 minutes of coaxing and arguing he locked me into a position where I had no option but to verbalize his very rejections. I felt sick to the core.

Then after some silence, "Well it sounds like you really like that topic and have already put some work into it," (how perceptive), "so I don't want to kill it for you. If you really want to do it, go ahead, but you'll really have to have a good argument. Blah, bale, bale."

When I listen, in between the lines of his concessions I hear, "Well, you like the topic, but I don't, so you can go ahead and do it, but unless you produce some sort of PhD quality dissertation, you'll probably get a bad grade."

Then he tells me that if I want to research that topic I should go to grad school for that. Oh and by the way, if I want to go to so-and-so state university for that he'll write me a letter of recommendation.

"Oh, wow, thanks?" After writing me off and making me feel so dumb, that's the last thing I expected to hear him say. I should have been flattered, but I felt belittled. "Well, I was actually eyeballing a program in Columbia about that kind of stuff," I respond.

"Ah yes, they have a lot of good stuff going on in Columbia," he tells me. A lot of good stuff. Good stuff that apparently is too good for me.

Well, our meeting wasn't enough, so we met after class to discuss his ideas for my final paper topic. Ironically, everytime I tried to phrase his suggestions in my own words it was, "Well, no not quite." Same as before. Then after an awkward silence he gives me this ranting lecture about how he doesn't want to see a summary of other people's arguments and how it better be really good because it's our only major paper in the class. Then when he finished he looked down on me from his seat on top of a desk and gave me this piercing look.

I said nothing. What did he want me to say? How incompetent does he think I am? It's clear to me that in his mind, he can make me out to be as incompetent as he wants, no matter what kind of work I produce. Goodness for him is socially constructed, and apparently he's already constructed me as some polar opposite. What should I have said? What does he think I've been doing for the last 15 years of my life? Bumming around?!? Is that why I got into this fucking elite college with all of its "high standards"? And did I not learn anything at all after so many years of college?

I felt so dirty and infantalized. I felt like I needed to shower to wash all of this disgusting negativity off of me. Ew.

"Well, I have nothing to say, so I guess I'll go." I awkwardly packed up my notebooks and stumbled out of the classroom.