Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

I may not be cut out for formal report writing.

This is a good thing.

To each his own, I say. And if my own isn’t dry as toast formal writing, report writing, abstracts and summaries, so be it.

It all started when I used a metaphor to help compare two summaries in an essay I had to write for my formal report writing class. Note I say “had to write.” The other writing I’ve done for other classes hasn’t felt like writing. It’s been fun. This class, it feels like writing, so help me. You can read my full essay here, using this really nifty file-sharing tool I found while researching stuff for my Second Life class. It’s called issuu.com.

Besides the stupid name, the service is great. They offer space to post documents online so they can be read there or posted to blogs. I’ve so far used it for private documents, though I’m befuddled that some of these documents are showing up as being read. Maybe people can still read them. Well, obviously they can. I’m using it because they let you post PDFs online – which most other online document repositories won’t let you do, for some reason I can’t fathom.

Anyway, my professor Dr. Shook didn’t much like how the metaphor got in the way of his reading of my assignment. Oh well. I still got full points for it, probably because he’s tired of dealing with me. I just don’t see why formal has to equal dull, which it does in spades in most of the formal papers I’ve read. I know there’s a place for dullness, but I believe if there’s a metaphor or artistic device that can help a reader understand an interpretation, we use it. I know not everyone thinks that way. I’ve suffered under the journalism teachers who pondered how fiction writers do what they do because “they have to make it all up.” I thought that was the point. But as I am fond of saying, I am no genius. I do not know the atlas.

Yes, I'm having a ball with this issuu.com feature. And the blog in general (as evidenced by all the junk I've been adding here lately. Perhaps it's a bit much. Just don't get me bored. . .

Subjectivity

I have to remind myself that when it comes to writing, everything, in every way, is open to interpretation. What is appealing and makes sense to one doesn’t necessarily appeal or make sense to another. But then the other is a professor who obviously isn’t above making digs at sub-par students as he prepares the class for the next lesson, well, subjectivity goes right out the window.

Guess where I lie on this pretty prismatic picture.

I’m not going to whine. I’m not married to this guy, though I am depended on pleasing him for a grade. But that’s what bugs me. I have to please him. Read his mind. I don’t mind that he’s the type who won’t reveal technical communication “truths” straight out, but wants us, instead, to come upon them ourselves so we can figure out the why as well as the what. What I do mind is that if we step off the path he’s pre-beaten for us, he’s there with a subtle, yet snide reprimand.

I bite my tongue. I continue as best I can in this class, knowing full well It’ll take a miracle to please Professor Poophead. That, in five years, only one student “understood” the point of his first exercise in the class paints a picture of a guy who really doesn’t want students to learn, but one of a guy who wants to show off what he knows and why he knows it, without really telling anyone about it. Maybe my attitude toward this professor and this class will change in the future, as these “truths” become more self-evident. But I doubt it.

I already know I don't know a lot of things. I think that's a pretty obvious reason I'm in this masters program. But I resent a professor who laughs it up at students who don't know.

One of 'Those' Professors

He's a trickster. He has hidden questions he wants answered. If you're on the wrong track he consdescends.

I have one of those kinds of professors.

Whining about his behavior doesn't make me feel any better, because I still have to deal with it until the end of April, and, perhaps, beyond if I have to take other classes from him in the year I have left in this technical writing program. I don't mind that we're being asked to learn. That's why I'm pursuing a master's degree. But I have a hard time learning when it's couched in a taco shell of smugness. But I will triumph. Now that I recognize the behavior in question, I am prepared to jump through his professorial hoops in order to get a decent grade in the class. I am, after all, an experienced student and a government employee. I will jump through the ring of fire, the ring of ice and over the dog doo stick, and win again.

This is Day Two of the Blistering Freeze we're in here in Idaho. School is again cancelled for the day, though it was only 14 below zero this morning. They never cancel work, of course. Even when our bus broke down on the way out this morning, they did not cancel work. They just sent us a new bus. Not that I mind. I'd rather be here, earning that paycheck, than at home right now, dealing with three kids -- no, five, because Michelle is babysitting two for the morning. Or so I assume, what with school cancelled and all. Now, I love my kids. But two days of indoor play has made them a bit cabin-feverish, and that never bodes well. Especially since the three-year-old gets bored and beats up the seven-year-old, who of course can never fight back and only complains about his poor treatment. At least Lexie is happy, likely drawing more pictures of herself as a ballerina.