how eric lem@y made my day
So I woke up this morning and it was snowing. SNOWING. and I was mad late. Because Thomas turned off the alarm clock. AS USUAL. And I was grumpy. I've been that way lately, you probably know. ;) I haven't even finished starting an overdue application to a summer program, and I've got serious grumps about that and about the fact that I have to somehow earn $4,000 for said summer program by the beginning of August, and that I forgot to sign up for shifts at my job for this month, and the fact that it's April already and you know. On and on.
And so I'm walking through the slushy snow to KANT with the illustrious KORSGAARD (who's apparently a Sartrienne? according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), freezing my ass off because I'm only wearing the black hoody I spent five hours questing for at the Bayshore Mall in the August before college, and I'm worried that my laptop is going to become wet and as grumpy as I am, and I'm just feeling generally apocalyptic.
And then someone in a highish male voice says "Annemarie!" and this is rare, because I don't know much in the way of people with highish male voices which have neither a colombian accent nor a flaming one, and especially not people who don't see me often (the voice was very surprised). So I was kind of confused as I looked around, but then I saw a very small face peering out from a black rainjacket under a black umbrella and it took me a minute to recognize this face as belonging to my old expos teacher (because I kind of thought he looked like a little boy or a shrew). You may remember this expos teacher --- he's the one I ran into in the Yard one night while I (and he too, I think) was drunkenly carousing, and who gave me an excuse-free extension on my paper the following morning.
It's always nice to see an old teacher and feel like they remember you, however unfondly, especially in these days of feeling the lack of adult help and mentorship, but this was especially nice, because he told me he still uses my R&J essay as an example of how to write excellently as a freshman and in general (I didn't tell him that it took me one hour of sitting on RK's futon to write that particular essay), and some other nice things that the mists of the last 5 hours have pretty much erased, but it was SO good to see him, and SO good to hear that right now, when I have so much I have to be writing! I wish I'd been with it enough to ask whether he's had much success getting that novel published (because all expos teachers are trying to publish their novels), but I'm really glad to hear that he's still around and still teaching expos, because honestly, I think I had the best expos class at Harvard. And he did give great workshops.
And now that I think of it, I feel like he said (whether truthfully or not) at the beg. of said expos class, that students still sometimes contact him for help with their work or whatnot, and I'm thinking that now that I'm getting a little more serious about this whole writerly business, maybe Eric's the guy to talk to.
Because K. V@z isn't, despite the fact that she wrote "she's not interested in producing 'the usual' workshop story" in my rec letter, which I don't think was intended as a compliment, but which was nevertheless a delightful thing to have recognized! I just don't feel like she and I get each other. Especially taking into account "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Blecch. But I'm glad she thinks I have a "generous spirit and sound, intellectual rigor."
I'm also daring and take risks. And I have "quiet turns of phrase."
I'm sure y'all can figure out what the @s are for. :)
Now, if I can just get a solid A (not minus) on something for La KORSGAARD, my life will be made.
And so I'm walking through the slushy snow to KANT with the illustrious KORSGAARD (who's apparently a Sartrienne? according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), freezing my ass off because I'm only wearing the black hoody I spent five hours questing for at the Bayshore Mall in the August before college, and I'm worried that my laptop is going to become wet and as grumpy as I am, and I'm just feeling generally apocalyptic.
And then someone in a highish male voice says "Annemarie!" and this is rare, because I don't know much in the way of people with highish male voices which have neither a colombian accent nor a flaming one, and especially not people who don't see me often (the voice was very surprised). So I was kind of confused as I looked around, but then I saw a very small face peering out from a black rainjacket under a black umbrella and it took me a minute to recognize this face as belonging to my old expos teacher (because I kind of thought he looked like a little boy or a shrew). You may remember this expos teacher --- he's the one I ran into in the Yard one night while I (and he too, I think) was drunkenly carousing, and who gave me an excuse-free extension on my paper the following morning.
It's always nice to see an old teacher and feel like they remember you, however unfondly, especially in these days of feeling the lack of adult help and mentorship, but this was especially nice, because he told me he still uses my R&J essay as an example of how to write excellently as a freshman and in general (I didn't tell him that it took me one hour of sitting on RK's futon to write that particular essay), and some other nice things that the mists of the last 5 hours have pretty much erased, but it was SO good to see him, and SO good to hear that right now, when I have so much I have to be writing! I wish I'd been with it enough to ask whether he's had much success getting that novel published (because all expos teachers are trying to publish their novels), but I'm really glad to hear that he's still around and still teaching expos, because honestly, I think I had the best expos class at Harvard. And he did give great workshops.
And now that I think of it, I feel like he said (whether truthfully or not) at the beg. of said expos class, that students still sometimes contact him for help with their work or whatnot, and I'm thinking that now that I'm getting a little more serious about this whole writerly business, maybe Eric's the guy to talk to.
Because K. V@z isn't, despite the fact that she wrote "she's not interested in producing 'the usual' workshop story" in my rec letter, which I don't think was intended as a compliment, but which was nevertheless a delightful thing to have recognized! I just don't feel like she and I get each other. Especially taking into account "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Blecch. But I'm glad she thinks I have a "generous spirit and sound, intellectual rigor."
I'm also daring and take risks. And I have "quiet turns of phrase."
I'm sure y'all can figure out what the @s are for. :)
Now, if I can just get a solid A (not minus) on something for La KORSGAARD, my life will be made.