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[ # ] Deep
July 10th, 2007 under Academics, Daily life, Los Angeles

While waiting for to-go food at Panera:

Guy walks up and sits down in the “to-go” waiting area and sings a snippet of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.” He turns to his companion and says:

“That’s the first song I ever knew as a kid that I thought had deep meaning. I mean, like, I was really impressed that I figured out that the lyrics meant something and weren’t just words. I totally thought I knew what it meant.”

(pause)

“I didn’t. I’m still not sure I do now.”

(pause) Sings a bit more.

“R.E.M. is deep, man.”

Later that same evening, I indulge in a self-torture habit, which is looking myself up on ratemyprofessors. Only one comment from last semester has appeared. It’s from a deaf student who I KNOCKED myself out to help, but she just couldn’t understand the material. That may have had something to do with the fact that she NEVER watched the interpreter and tended to chat with her neighbor in ASL.

Here’s what she said:

“She is good teacher very understanding with concepts of the class teaching but with the written test she is so picking and myself being deaf i am struggle with grammers that she is picking with but i do understand the class concepts but written so picky so she gave me D+ She does 3 papers and 2 written test that overall for semester.”

Understanding comes the way it comes and in its own time. Or not. Damn grammers.

Deep, man.

Read the Comments

[ # 1078 ] Comment from WenWhit [July 10, 2007, 4:26 pm]

Holy Hell! With that writing “ability”, I hope her other professors graded similarly.

(I have VERY little experience with the population, but I don’t see the correlation between hearing impairment and the WRITTEN word. Wtf?)

[ # 1079 ] Comment from SassyFemme [July 10, 2007, 6:30 pm]

That’s writing from a college student? Oh.my.

A friend of ours looked herself up on ratemyprofessors, most of the comments were about how hot she was, and had little to do with anything related her teaching.

[ # 1080 ] Comment from sporksforall [July 10, 2007, 7:34 pm]

A college JUNIOR.

I don’t have a hot chili on ratemyprofessors. I’m ok with it.

[ # 1081 ] Comment from WordsRock [July 11, 2007, 6:13 am]

“Losing My Religion” is rather deep, although I can find depth in most song lyrics.

I’m surprised she earned a D+ with writing as bad as that. You’re obviously not that picky!

[ # 1082 ] Comment from sporksforall [July 11, 2007, 9:10 am]

She can’t even get her grade right, actually. She got a D. Mostly because I helped her a lot on the papers.

[ # 1083 ] Comment from the only daughter [July 11, 2007, 12:45 pm]

Drats to grammers and picky profs! ;)

[ # 1084 ] Comment from Slangred [July 12, 2007, 5:22 pm]

This is good post very understanding with concepts of the deep meaning but with the written comments she is so picking and myself i am struggle with grammers that she is picking with but i do understand the concepts but written so picky.

[ # 1085 ] Comment from alice, uptown [July 12, 2007, 8:07 pm]

i (sic) think she is not e.e. cummings, by a long shot. One would hope that someone who is hearing-impaired would want to be able to reach the world in through some grammatical text that other Americans presumably share. Or perhaps I’m being too picking.

[ # 1086 ] Comment from scout [July 13, 2007, 10:42 am]

Being politic, English really is a second language for this woman, since attempting to correlate ASL’s vocabulary of symbols with written and spoken English is vastly complicated.

That being said, we do expect ESL university students to demonstrate competency in written English—kind of a cornerstone of higher education (as well as lower education, but children do get left behind). She’s three quarters of the way toward a bachelor’s degree?! Argh.

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