Stars upon Thars
I have this one friend who is kind of the queen of the non sequitur. You could be having this perfectly normal conversation about something simple, let's just say it's trees. Maybe I'm talking about how much I like Jacarandas, but I hate how they dump purple flowers everywhere. And then suddenly she'll say something like "Yeah. It's kinda like this one time I was training this horse to kneel and she did it but wouldn't take the apple I gave her." WHAT. That had nothing to do with anything we were talking about! How did you get there? I'm honestly confused.
I'm actually amazed how often stuff like this happens in academia, but I guess it's because I can't tell what's going on in someone's head. I've noticed, for example, that if Justin and I have talked about something at lunch, he's probably going to bring it up in 344 because it's fresh in his mind and he's been thinking about it... even if it doesn't always fit into the discussion 100%. But sometimes people say things and I am honestly dumbstruck, like I can't figure out WHAT train of logic the person took to get off at the station of, say, quoting Einstein in a lecture about romantic poetry. HOW DID YOU DO THIS.
Today in a lecture about Dr. Seuss' book The Sneeches I was treated with such a delightful non sequitur I almost jumped down the lecture hall and strangled the girl. If you don't know, Sneeches are birds. Half of them have a star shaped birthmark on their bellies, and the other half do not. And they treat each other like crap. Then this guy comes and starts offering to fix up the non-stars so they have stars, then offers to take away the stars from the star'd ones when they start whining about how they aren't superior anymore. Long story short, the Sneeches learn that the stars were arbitrary and they are all the same on the inside when they forgot what they fucking looked like before because they've changed their appearance so many times.
But I digress.
The non sequitur was (paraphrased of course): "You know, I really like this story. I can really relate. It kinda reminds me of the election two years ago when we were voting on gay marriage, and I was against it but everyone on my street was for it, and I felt shunned and marginalized because I didn't believe in the same thing that they did. I guess I'm a lot like the Starless Sneeches. I don't think gay people should get married cause it's, like, wrong and stuff."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH DID YOU NOT JUST HEAR YOURSELF?
Though thankfully my professor recognized that the person clearly was just trying to shoe-horn in a political debate for no reason other then THIS IS IMPORTANT TO ME GUYS I AM A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE... so she ignored her. This isn't a debate about whether she was right or wrong, mind you, it's that she basically said "I relate to this story about discriminating people for arbitrary reasons because I was discriminated against because I was planning on discriminating people for arbitrary reasons."
Please save me. College is full of idiots.
I'm actually amazed how often stuff like this happens in academia, but I guess it's because I can't tell what's going on in someone's head. I've noticed, for example, that if Justin and I have talked about something at lunch, he's probably going to bring it up in 344 because it's fresh in his mind and he's been thinking about it... even if it doesn't always fit into the discussion 100%. But sometimes people say things and I am honestly dumbstruck, like I can't figure out WHAT train of logic the person took to get off at the station of, say, quoting Einstein in a lecture about romantic poetry. HOW DID YOU DO THIS.
Today in a lecture about Dr. Seuss' book The Sneeches I was treated with such a delightful non sequitur I almost jumped down the lecture hall and strangled the girl. If you don't know, Sneeches are birds. Half of them have a star shaped birthmark on their bellies, and the other half do not. And they treat each other like crap. Then this guy comes and starts offering to fix up the non-stars so they have stars, then offers to take away the stars from the star'd ones when they start whining about how they aren't superior anymore. Long story short, the Sneeches learn that the stars were arbitrary and they are all the same on the inside when they forgot what they fucking looked like before because they've changed their appearance so many times.
But I digress.
The non sequitur was (paraphrased of course): "You know, I really like this story. I can really relate. It kinda reminds me of the election two years ago when we were voting on gay marriage, and I was against it but everyone on my street was for it, and I felt shunned and marginalized because I didn't believe in the same thing that they did. I guess I'm a lot like the Starless Sneeches. I don't think gay people should get married cause it's, like, wrong and stuff."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH DID YOU NOT JUST HEAR YOURSELF?
Though thankfully my professor recognized that the person clearly was just trying to shoe-horn in a political debate for no reason other then THIS IS IMPORTANT TO ME GUYS I AM A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE... so she ignored her. This isn't a debate about whether she was right or wrong, mind you, it's that she basically said "I relate to this story about discriminating people for arbitrary reasons because I was discriminated against because I was planning on discriminating people for arbitrary reasons."
Please save me. College is full of idiots.