punning things into perspective.

happily, but with slight irreverence i now begin chapter three of “shame my parents”. for an annotated version of the first two chapters see below. for a more in depth case analysis call mark herman (the faj) and ask him how many single period absences i had during my senior year of high school. being a statistics man, he could also probably provide you with the z-score of my laziness and his predicted odds of how well or rather how bad i’d perform on my ap stats test. he was right. then, to get his goat, and boost my ego slightly, ask him what grades i managed to pull off despite the period absences. average grades. average indeed. this brings me to what i’d like to pontificate on after a long relaxing break from the stressful world of blogging… namely, school. (i am choosing to write this, of course, as a 100 page deadline looms over my head quite threateningly.) i would like to state for the record that i do believe that high school and that college of some sort are necessary and high beneficial. that being said, i half-assed both. i really despised high school. the people in it, the atmosphere, the way that i could watch a ridiculous film like “she’s all that” and think wow, that could totally happen at my school, the sense of community it evoked, were all things i ceased to understand the merits of, thus i failed to belong. of course that’s no excuse for not trying. not even close. however, if something fails to inspire me or i cannot see the point of exerting all my energy into said thing then i will put forth the minimal amount necessary to be an average or above average student. some may call this laziness. some may call it ungrateful. it may very well be both of those things but it is nonetheless my nature. there’s also that little thing about if you never give 100% then it never hurts when you fail. that may have been a factor.

i squeaked through high school and i skipped through university. high school was murky. university was different. university was money. money meant time. time became necessary so i went to class. i learned a lot in university. i made friends. i took interesting classes. went to interesting debates. attending meetings. took advantage of what was being given to me. i did. one thing i did not do is spend time in the library. the library was not my friend. the kind of concentration and dedication a space like that evoked, no required, scared me. i did papers in my bed staying up all night the day before they were due. when they were research papers i started two nights before they were due. i did it. i turned in the work. but, i never gave it my all. aha! wait! amendment to the former embarrassing assertion. once, once, i gave it my all. professor almog’s "philosophy of the mind" class intrigued me to no end. almog, a smelly frenchman with wacko einstein hair and entirely too short of biker shorts which always had chalk on the butt bit, inspired me to no end. the class was fascinating. so were the chalk patterns on his bottom. the material was difficult yet i knew that if i put in the effort i could understand it. did he wear hair pomade or was his hair naturally that spastic? i was intrigued. he laid out everything in front of us on the first day and said “you must understand everything fully, there are no short cuts. i dare you to get an a.” he dares me to get an a? he dares me? aha! i double dare him back. no! triple dare. i’ll get an a +++.

oh wait. i just realized why i get along with four year olds so well. great.

i studied hard. in my bed. i read my ass off. went to my ta’s office hours frequently. i spoke with almog after and during class, made sure he knew my name in a room of 300. i did it. well not an a +++. but a 98. a+. i’ll settle for that. i stalked almog, i mean ran into him, after i got my grades back. “almog! hey! loved your class. loved it. got my first a +, first a + ever.” and do you know what that french bastard said back to me?

“i know rebecca, you earned it.”

rebecca? rebecca?

ok. so. i’ve thought about this and he knew my name in class, and this was a good month and a half after class had ceased. so. rebecca is a very traditional name. a very traditional jewish name. another traditional jewish name is aaron, or abraham. those both start with a’s. amanda starts with an a. (i went by amanda in classes to as to appear professional.) so basically you take amanda. make it a masculine jewish name like aaron or abraham. then you think oh wait, she’s not a boy. wait, another jewish name…. oh yes… rebecca. rebecca must be her name. yep. that’s it. that right there is what happened in almog’s brain.

i think the point here is that he forgot my name. maybe he remembered my face and knew that i had gotten that grade, maybe he was bullshitting. but the last part, the second part, that’s true. that’s true because it’s true for everyone who took that class. if you got an a, you earned it. that’s my first a + and the only a i’d say i’d ever really truly earned. it felt good. it felt great.

so yeah. i’m supposed to be writing a 100 page screenplay and instead i’m writing this. but, i took a break from writing the 100 page screenplay to write this and i am taking that break and doing that writing, both of the blog and the screenplay, in, of all places, the library. so i could bang on about how screenwriting is my passion and life-calling (which it is). and about how i go to class and am inspired (which i am). but for those of you that know me and/or minutely understood all that babble above, all I really need to say is, i’m writing. in the library.

x