Fear and Loathing of Comp 101

Here's something I bet nobody knows about me. I suck the old hind tit at College Composition classes. It's not that this revelation is of any particular relevance or anything since my college days are 10 years behind me and I have no desire to go back, it's just a little odd considering I have this wildly succesful weblog that is, according to some "the second coming of the bible, but not in a sacreligious way" or "the dopest shit since Sarah, Plain and Tall'' or even "the culmination of what would happen if a Fire Monster had sex with Godzilla's bigger, less stable cousin and the baby came out and then choked them both to death with his penis and then started writing a blog." Uh.... I got all excited there reading those accolades and forgot what I was saying...





Oh yeah, so I sucked at Comp 101. I don't know why I was thinking about this, probably because I spend 2 hours or so a day reflecting on things that went askew of my plans in the past, and how I would approach them differently if the situation were to ever arise again. My solution usually involves cartoonish violence and/or death, pre-pubescent name calling, and sometimes, a complicated system of levers, pulleys, guy wires and buttresses. In lay terms, my solutions are friggin' sweet.





Anyhow, I even got two separate chances at Comp 101. You would have figured at least one would have gone well. Wrong as usual, you idiot. Didn't you figure that it couldn't have gone smoothly if I was writing about it? What are you, dumb or something? Wait, who am I talking to?





Chance #1 was in Junior College where I went for a year to play baseball. I quickly realized that I would rather be peed on repeatedly by an 80 year old man than matriculate there any longer than I had to. The college in question was filled with 5 types of students as far as I could tell.





1.) Really scary 25 year old knuckleheads and gangbangers whose conditions of parole required they attend secondary institutions, and scare the shit out of everybody there as frequently as possible.





2.) Women of unknown origin wearing full length burqas that showed only their eyes and foreheads. They made loud popping noises occasionally but otherwise were completely mute. I thought they were wizards or something.





3.) Trashy looking white girls that were 50 pounds overweight and brought their babies to class with them. I guarantee you that all those babies are now 15 year olds that know every single ingredient you need to make meth.



4.) Non-traditional jerk off old people who would show up to class dressed like they were going to a job interview (complete with an attache case filled with crumpled up newspapers or something) and then proceed to fuck up the curve by getting really high grades on everything. Hey Dingus, getting 100% vs 90% in Intermediate Algebra at the local JC is not going to land you any better of a job in the real world, but you are very likely to get a serious beatdown by group #1 if you don't quit fuckin' up the curve.



5.) ME.



So as I sat down to my class, it was kind of like prison. Don't make eye contact with the scary gang members, don't sit near the non-trads, so the gang members won't mistake you for one, avoid the wizards so you don't get turned into some ingredient that goes in a cauldron, and stay away from the trashy white women because both them and their babies are squawking incessantly for no good reason.



Anyhow, our first assignment was to write a paper about a book or a pamphlet or something. So I wrote what I thought was something fairly incisive and clever and turned it in. I got my grade back about a week later. 43%. Apparently I had forgotten to follow some rules regarding spacing and margins, and font, and bibliographies, and other shit that we all use A LOT in real life right? It's terrific that most everything I learned ceased being relevant the exact instant I learned it. But whatever, I did it wrong, I could accept that. So the next paper I wrote was done absolutely according to form, correct margins, a works cited page, etc. It was flawless, like a naked lady holding a burrito. I got my grade back. 44%. What?? Even the freakin' white trash babies had done better than me. I was going to fail this class!



Here's where I made one of my uncharacteristic brilliant decisions. Since I already had a good idea of where I was going to school the following year, and since my GPA was hovering right around the 2.0, baseball eligibility Mendoza line, and since the current season had just ended, I quit. I dropped all my classes thereby ensuring my GPA would drop no lower than it already was and guaranteeing admittance to the next school, along with baseball eligibility. I do a lot of really stupid things, but this choice was right on the money. On the flip side, I was embarrased to tell my Mom and Dad that I quit school, so for about 5 weeks I would get dressed and pretend to go to school, but instead I'd just go to Aquila, SLP's version of Rucker Park, and play basketball for a few hours and then come home. I always wondered why my Mom never asked me why I was drenched with sweat when I arrived home from school.



So then I went out to South Dakota for school, and did pretty well, so my cumulative GPA got up a little over 3.0, but the whole Comp 101 debacle still sat in the back of my head like a dirty secret, so I totally avoided taking it. Finally my 5th year of school, I decided I'd have to buckle down and take the class. I was being openly mocked by my friends because of my class schedule. I had 4 upper level business school electives.... and Comp 101. I even had to mock myself a little.



The first thing I noticed when I got to this class was that for basically everybody but me, this was their first college class. There were girls shrieking and giggling and pushing their desks together and writing their first name and then their boyfriends' last name and stuff like that.



The second thing I noticed was that the TA (listed as TBA on my schedule) was actually a year younger than me, was somebody I knew, and was a friend of mine's girlfriend. Or to put that another way she was a girl that he had dated once. Or to put it another way she was a girl that he had gone on one date with. Or to put it another way she was a girl he had had a sexual relationship with frequently and had taken her to Burger King to feed her once because all we had in the fridge was beer and empty ice cube trays. Or to put it another way, she was a girl he would call at 2:30 in the morning after he had drank 20 beers and eaten a giant vat of fettucini alfredo and was too bloated with food and booze to pass out yet and then would hide in the morning in the hopes that I would break down and drive her back to her sorority house and he wouldn't have to see her.



So with all this newly learned information I was practically ejaculating with anticipation for this class. So the TA/redundant one night stand comes in, and not only does she appear to have been shopping at the Lilith Sternin-Crane House of Style for her TA uniform, but she's also become an incredible hard ass.



Her: There will be no speaking out of turn, no talking without raising your hand. If you're late by 1 second it counts as a tardy, if you get 5 tardies your grade drops by a letter. Unexcused absences drop you a letter grade, etc etc.



Me: Um.... you left your underpants at my house last May. But you can't have them back. Thanks to you I now have a canopy bed. Oh, and come get your bike. It got all rusty cuz it laid outside all summer and I can't ride it to parties anymore and the landlord tripped on it.



It was weird. I had 4 senior level business school classes, and 1 high school class. And of course, while I did just fine with the 4 business school classes, my grades in Comp 101 were consistently D's and F's. I was barely hanging on to a passing grade that was inflated because of my spotless attendance that we got points for.



In my business school classes, if I had gotten a poor mark on something, I would generally go in and speak with the teacher about it, and we'd have a very congenial argument on the merits of my work which would generally result in an upwards revision of my grades, but in the Comp class, it seemed weirdly unconfortable to go talk to someone who was younger than me and whom I knew. I just figured she was going to get some sort of passive aggressive revenge on my buddy with me as the conduit by giving me poor grades. I had accepted this as fact when she asked to meet with me after class one day. I figured I was going to get harangued because Lisa Jo Johnson, the 18 year old from Sioux Falls with the sparkly purse and braces was doing two letter grades better than me. What I got was this:



Her: How do I get him to like me again?



Me: I don't think he really ever liked you in the first place.



Her: OK Mr. D Minus, thanks for the advice.



The lightbulb flickered on in my head. Then I got an idea. An awful idea. The Brian got a wonderful, awful idea. I'm not going to divulge what my idea was, but sufficed to say it involved my friend and her "making up" thanks to some really serious treasonous lying on my part, and I wound up with a solid B in that class.



So I got through the holy hell that is Beginning English Composition, but I still don't understand why I sucked at it so bad. Maybe I'll never know, or maybe it's as simple as a quote from a very wise friend of mine. "Sometimes you suck at stuff because you do." I like simplicity. I hope that's it.