this evening, my fiction class spent the longest two hours on the planet on the WORST PIECE OF FICTION ON THE PLANET. it was worth two months of RE-WRITING and PRAYER before two hours of character analysis. two hours of "there isn't enough textual evidence to support any of this crap."

there are two distinct Contributors that i find in most of my english classes:

1. the ogre. (i've discussed the ogre before.) the ogre is usually larger than your average person, either in height or weight, though frequently both. this is usually emphasized by their unique lack of hygiene, which surrounds them like an atmosphere surrounds a planet. they never have questions. they only have statements. statements that have to do less with the subject matter and more with their profound personal life experiences with things like the affixes "pre-" and "-ed." when the ogre talks, people with glasses take off their glasses as if it might make the ogre disappear. nobody responds to the statements made by the ogre, because then the ogre will just keep talking. at first, teachers will try to stop the ogre by providing information. eventually the teachers learn that giving the ogre information is just giving the ogre attention, which makes the ogre expand. and keep talking. the ogre occurs in one out of every three classes at hsu and in nine out of every ten english classes.

2. the geriatric. this older woman is in the over-sixty program and gets to pay a fraction of the cost paid by all of the other students to ask unnecessarily in-depth questions about the syllabus/quiz/reading and rhapsodize about her experiences with childbirth/the adoption agency/gardening/stage fright/the man who comes over to their house every tuesday for dinner and sometimes drives her around town to show her the sidewalks he's just paved. the geriatric is also in most of the music classes at hsu. there are two instances of the geriatric in my friday piano rep class. they take up a good 20% of the hour, just of the two of them. there are thirteen other people in the class. it drives me fucking nuts. the geriatric occurs in one out of every four english classes, one and a seventh out of every one music class, and one out of five in all other classes.

sometimes you have a combination of the ogre and the geriatric, often referred to as the geriatric ogre. the geriatric ogre is a very large and unhealthy old woman who often has a rolling backpack, a laptop (that always needs access to THAT OUTLET RIGHT THERE SO COULD YOU MOVE THANKS, spit spraying everywhere like raid), slow-healing sores (often on the forearm), and the occasional small dog that the university puts up with pattering around campus because the dialogue just isnt worth it. (becky. becky is the name of the dog.)

these people take up SO MUCH TIME. sometimes i want to walk out of the classroom, let out a primal scream into the hallway, and walk back in. other times i just walk out. i'm better off working on bach or reading ray bradbury in the third story of the library.