Then Person A picks the book which is good because the reason why you asked Person A to join was because you noticed he had FREAKONOMICS on his coffee table, and you've been meaning to read it since your Economics professor mentioned it. This way you can not only read what you wanted to read but you can also have a club you created to add to your college application under extracurricular activity. Now all you need is a cool name for the club.
I started thinking about how easy and inexpensive it would be to have an after school book club on the high school level. Maybe you could even go to book readings and events that are put on at libraries. . . but then I remembered that many books are actually controversial and maybe that's why my teachers never ran one.
Anyway, so far I am the only person in this club without a college degree. The only person with a degree in English doesn't want to read books that weren't originally written in English. That was disappointing since I've bought a bunch of translations, but I figure that you have to seduce your book club the same way you'd seduce a partner. So all I have to do is pick a mainstream, accessible, kindofwanttoread type of book, like maybe Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story, and then -- when she least expects it -- I bust out the foreign novel. Maybe I'll have an extra copy that I give her with the cover ripped off so that she doesn't realize it wasn't originally written in English.
Now all I have to worry about is the food. If this was poker night I'd make nachos but for the hip (but not too hip) folks of Jackson I'll make Thai fresh spring rolls and Bhel Puri.
So, I am a little calculating. I'm okay with that. Five years ago I would have just let things happen to me. I didn't care about the classes I took or the professors I picked. I never did any sort of research in advance on who was teaching or what was going to be taught, but for the most part I was pretty lucky. But those days are over. When I came back to school for the spring semester of 2010 I had a plan in my head of exactly what I needed to accomplish before transferring. I was determined that a professor who, five years ago, offered to write me a glowing letter of recommendation would most definitely be teaching a class I could take this spring semester. I wouldn't say I was comfortable with taking the class since my last extremely vague memory of talking to the professor was me being an asshole (at least I think? What my memory is missing is bugging me more than those hours I lost after midnight on New Years, but in the latter case I have vodka, brandy, hot damn, and beer to blame) but I knew that if I took it I would perform well and get that damn letter of recommendation I should have taken years ago.
So . . . when I saw the schedule and he wasn't teaching the class all my ambivalence and anxiety melted away into frustration/anger/determination and my heart started humping the inside of my chest like a dog to a couch cushion. Fortunately, I already had a Plan B. A vague Plan B, but I'll have all spring semester to shape it into a better idea before presenting my proposal in the fall. It'll be a special project, a way to get that damn letter fair and square AND learn something.
While debating with a coworker about how important it is to create a brand for myself in my college application essay he told me I was taking it too far, going too crazy thinking about it, and that I shouldn't rack up credits that won't transfer. He's a college graduate from Michigan State and he makes as much money as I do, which isn't much, but it isn't minimum wage either. We have benefits. We work with other college graduates. I've seen college graduates get laid off. To actually consider leaving a full time job (with benefits) in this economy is a pretty scary thing. And when I transfer that's exactly what I'm going to have to do. And I like my boss. I like my coworkers. And sometimes I even like the work itself (though maybe not this month). It's also nice to work close to home (although it's a house I don't actually want to live in). So when I leave I need to have all my ducks in a row. I need a savings fund. I need to get into the best public university that I can. I need to have read a million and one books so that I can get the most out of the experience. In the meantime, I'm going to suck community college for all it's worth. I am the leach getting fat on the blood of public education, not falling off until I've gorged myself to near death.
Another reason why I am getting, as my coworker/friend said, "psycho about it" is because school is ruining/reshaping my life. My friendships, my relationship, everything. And yet. . .if I had to choose, I'd choose school. Sure, there are external factors that make it more appealing. I am utterly depressed when I look at people I know and/or am related to, the addicts and the arrested, the family and friends in abusive relationships, all the wonderful people I've known who are so hell bent on destroying themselves, and all the not so wonderful people I've met who want to destroy anyone that isn't them. Then there is the sibling who took a different path, a path of denial and mutilation, turning herself into some synthetic freakshow of suburban normalcy, and denying all her artistic dreams in favor of money and possessions -- that clearly don't satisfy her -- going from poor girl to hater of the poor, all because she hates who she was, who we were. Or maybe she doesn't remember, because if she remembered, she wouldn't sound like Ronald Reagan talking about welfare queens. I want to reach out to her, to pull her into the darkness and show her how cool it can be, how free she'll feel when she accepts who she is and where she came from. But. . . I have to focus on myself for now. I know who I am and all the skirts, suits, and uniforms I have to wear will never make me forget.
. . .And it's more than the external factors that make me love school. It's something else. Something building inside me.
To prepare for one upcoming class I've purchased a bunch of playbooks, a vocabulary builder book, a rhyming dictionary, and some other helpful tools. I decided this time around in creative writing I wouldn't bs my way through the poetry section. I'm kind of excited about it because the professor taught me for a couple weeks when I was in elementary school. So, I figured I'd better read some plays being that I don't go to any. I've decided the next friend I make will want to go to the ballet and to see plays.
Still. . .despite any increasing confidence I've developed since spring semester I can't watch the first six and a half minutes of this scene in Educating Rita without over relating and bawling my eyes out.
I cry. Every. Single. Time.
. . . Speaking of better songs to sing, I'm going to put on some Arcade Fire and do some homework.
They heard me singing and they told me to stop
Quit these pretension things and just punch the clock
These days my life, I feel it has no purpose
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface
'Cause on the surface the city lights shine
They're calling at me, come and find your kind
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small
That we can never get away from the sprawl
- Arcade Fire
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