Losing the Battle, Part V

The English instructor mentions that participation is 10% of our grade. We can also miss four class sessions without it affecting our standing.

I've been wondering tonight, after Mom made the comment that she didn't go to school to make friends, why I do show up to class. And so far, this year, I haven't missed a single one (but after class began, I did leave on two occasions).

Most of the time with few exceptions, I actually want to go to lecture--not because of my grade, but because I'm genuinely interested in learning. I wake up in the morning and think, "I have school to look forward to."

 Poetry isn't my main love, but I see it's value and therefore attend English 201B and complete the readings and take my "hits" on my in-class essays and write my papers. While I don't agree that "pop culture" (how do you define such a phrase?) is more important than literature, I still attend a pop culture English class because I recognize the topic's significance, and would otherwise probably disregard it as a study. I'm learning something new, instead of going over Robert Frost again. Or Hamlet. I never saw The Bean Trees as a great novel, maybe it's a good one, but I can respect the opinion of someone who does think it's outstanding because he simply has more education than I and maybe sees elements of it that I cannot. After all, I doubt I could convince any English professor to include Noonday Demon in their curriculum.

Stanford suggested that I return to college so that I would have more structure to my day, and simply, more to do that didn't consist of housework. They made no grand plans of me finishing my education.

Some students are there who don't want to be there--maybe a lot of them. I'm sure my professors have days when they simply don't want to show up either--but do because it's their job.

I told my mom when I came home from campus that I think about my disorder at least two times a day--in the morning when I take my pills and in the evening when I take more of them. Usually, I think about it multiple times a day. I also argued to Mom that no one wants to talk about mental health--that includes Trump and Clinton--and that it was not included as an issue in the debates.

"People should be concerned about the environment too, but they're not," comes my mother's response.

What started as a simple, beginner English class has now turned into all sorts of questions--should I go back to the University in Jan--should I be an English major--if I do change majors what will I do with my degree--will I go to graduate school? All the while wondering if going to college all those years will make me a better creative nonfiction writer? And is that fate, spending years in graduate school, better than my opportunities in the job market or staying on Disability?

But what really strikes at my heart are the overwhelming feelings of isolation, disconnect and alienation while attending English 201A (oddly enough, I don't have the same emotions towards English 201B). I simply have nothing in common with my classmates--including the older, returning students who still represent a large age gap. I feel like I've been thrown back into grammar school where I'm trying to survive against a seed of bullies. And I'm not succeeding.

Sure, I have B+/A- in the class (will know more after my American Sniper paper is graded), but that simply isn't enough. You have to walk in there and, excuse the word, dominate the group through knowing fuck more than they do. Otherwise, you get tossed to the wolves. You have all these voices competing for attention--white males to be exact--while the minorities like Maria make no sound. It's like watching a reality TV show (which, to be honest, I haven't seen many) about college. Someone shouts about a character, "He's a dick!" Like that's okay, using that kind of language in a college classroom! But who cares, they're all young, this is their first semester in college, they don't know how to act.

We can excuse them.

"Sometimes," Mom says to me while I'm on the phone with her just outside of class today, "You get a room full of idiots."

I hate labeling people like that because someone's idiot in one subject is someone else's genius in another. We can't judge students on one class. After all, I was eighteen once, and yes, even then, I thought I was special in the classroom--I could be a standout if I tried hard enough. I could impress any professor (this isn't true, one of the more poignant cases is of the University English lecturer I named simply "The English Professor," who's Facebook page I was staring at last night--he never liked me very much despite my efforts).

But I don't see any of those eighteen-year-olds trying to impress the English instructor, although maybe a few of them do through their writings on their papers.

What's sad about my story is--comparatively to theirs--I had to drop out of college after a few quarters when it became obvious that I was going to have my own troubles. I just wasn't the student I thought I could be--should be. I couldn't be the straight-A pre-vet gal. I was skating by with C's in my hard core science classes.