sublingua

(Be present.)

(It's past.)

(Go there now.)

so dearest,

well, it's been an eventful week which i will relate

to you momentarily. first, however, i want to ask your

opinion of some small matter.

on thursday in my shakespeare class, we were

discussing macbeth and some guy in class made the

comment: "lady macbeth? well, she's just a bitch." the

ta (who is gaining experience teaching classes by

working with the professor whom i adore and

is the reason i am taking the class in the first

place) joked, saying, "you all know that "bitch" is a

literary term." and, holding up a book, said, "it's

right here in the book of literary terms." and people

laughed. then, a few minutes later, some idiot started

making these comments like: "women? all they want is

money." and so on. then only one woman joined in the

rest of the discussion, so i started to think, well,

didn't the ta just make this class safe for men to

express their misogynistic ideas? and that night, i

couldn't sleep until i had sat down and written the ta

an email basically telling him that perhaps though he

intended to diffuse the use of the term "bitch" by

joking about it, that maybe instead he had made the

class a safe place for men to express easy

generalizations about women and furthermore had

effectively silenced roughly half the class. i also

wrote that i wanted to send him an email before coming

to his office (my concern, which i didn't say in the

email, was that i not broadside him in his office with

what might be taken to be some militant feminist

agenda). he wrote back saying that of course my

concern was okay for me to have or somesuch thing (i

have the email if you want to read it) and that he

would like to talk with me about it, yadda, yadda, and

would i mind if he forwarded it to fresch? and of

course i said it was fine with me. so, what i want to

know is: did i do the right thing calling him on this?

what is your opinion, dearest?

i get the sense that, because this is my last

semester, that this is at least part of the reason

that i am unwilling to let things like this pass. i

mean, "bitch is a literary term"? come on. but am i

overreacting?

the second bit of opinion i'm soliciting has to do

with the whole neo in class thing. here's the

deal: unm's recently changed their categorization of

the shakespeare classes so that instead of dividing up

along the lines of tragedies/histories and

comedies/romances, they are now early shakespeare and

later shakespeare. under the new system, i'd be

repeating eng. 353--which i took as the

tragedies/histories, but which is now being taught as

the later shakespeare by the professor i love so much.

i went to talk to her to ask if i could drop the class

rather than repeat the credit, but continue to sit in,

since i haven't read 75% of the material. she was all

for it, and reminded me that i had originally wanted

to do the milton independent study class anyway, which

she was more than happy for me to take--in fact, she

was quite enthusiastic about it, jumping around,

telling me that she had thought about how i might

apply myself to the class, that i had to think about a

paper topic and start doing some reading. and, instead

of saying, as i had intended to if and when she

brought it up, "oh, it turns out i don't have the time

for the independent study class" (read: since it would

mean twice a week in the room with the four people one

of whom would be a matthew and one of whom would be a

me)--instead of saying all of this or, in fact, any of

this, i found myself nodding like a chipmunk and

agreeing to meet with them in her office. now what?

i'm torn. lea and ama think: take the class with

her and fuck him, maybe he'll drop (unlikely as he's

doing his honor's thesis with her). april thinks: see

how uncomfortable it is and then go, admit to the prof

what's going on, and arrange to meet with her at a

different time. mel (one of the

drunkenbowlingkaraoke babes and one of the other four

in the class) thinks i should do it if only to save

her from calling neo a jerk. and me? i'm like, am

i doing this because i'm a fucking glutton for

punishment? am i doing this because i love this

teacher and want to study milton (her specialty) with

her? am i doing this so that i can rub neo's nose

in my presence and/or see him twice a week? i don't

know fuckall about my motivations in this situation. i

do want to study this subject with this instructor,

but it's also true that it's not the most important

thing in the world to me. i want it. but do i need it?

so i need an outsider to tell me what to do, because

i'm tired of putting out fires. especially one's i've

started myself. yet again: dearest?

and there was a mayflower viewing this evening. and we're

going walking in the morning. and her tattoo? looks a bit infected. red and

swollen around the edges. scary.

and so. mostly i just need some advice, which you

should give as you are inclined.

and now i have to go pick up the dave.

i will write again soon as i'm able.

yours in adversity--

sublingua

retreat or surrender

More lies:
Waking Sleeping Demons II - Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011
Waking Sleeping Demons - Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011
time - Friday, May. 20, 2011
- - Wednesday, Oct. 06, 2010
The Return - Tuesday, Oct. 05, 2010