Author and Columnist
I am an English major, not a business one.
You start as a secondary education teaching student. Yes, you aspire to teach English, but you are not an English student.
This is not to say you will not end up an English major to graduate. The teaching program at New Paltz in the early 2000s is a disaster for you. The adjuncts and professors seemed possessed by a paranoid and almost cultish dogma -- something that is not rare in the teachers' lounges I have visited. I question how much your instructors want to teach the next generation of the profession. It is not universal, but two of them stick out to me. (At least at SUNY New Paltz. At your eventual grad school, you will work with a few who are excellent and a few more who are so miserable that they make the New Paltz instructors seem bastions of joyful pedagogy.)
I have been scanty with stories in my replies to you, liberated to the truth by decades of distance, so let's gossip.
In a one-credit, pass-fail seminar, one of your classmates spits that she loathes reading and writing. This would be a handicap for any student, to say nothing of a potential teacher, but quite literally makes you laugh when she pronounces her aspiration to be an English teacher. Before you can think better of it -- and I doubt you would have -- you say, "Have you considered being a different sort of teacher?" The instructor tears into you for apparently crushing this young woman's dreams, though I do not think she would be much of a teacher if your snark dissuaded her. (She should not become an English teacher with the attitude since she will detest what she teaches and may impart this hatred to her pupils.)
When you are later speaking to a professor you will have the following semester, this instructor bursts into the office, saying that you cannot take his course because you have yet to pass hers. When you calmly point out that it is a pass-fail course where one must do three assignments of four, and you have already done the three requisites, thus you passed in all but her entering the "pass," she is livid. That you called her on this does not engender the appreciation of the professor, who takes a pronounced dislike of you going forward.
This professor -- whom you dub Jenks here for some reason -- is, kindly put, not good at his job. He falls into the unfortunate chasm of many educators of educators: tedious, irrelevant readings for the sake of having assigned them; three-hour lectures; rote recitation; a lack of awareness of secondary classroom instruction beyond what one read in the textbook; empty buzzwords; an inability to treat students holistically rather than discrete elements that do not inform one another (empty bellies make empty heads; kids are disciplinary problems because they fear doing poorly in front of peers, they are not "bad" in a vacuum). My recollection may be tainted by how snidely he will treat you, but it is verifiably not inaccurate. When New Paltz decides to upend the program such that you would have to spend an extra year completing the new requirements, you shift to being an English major to graduate on time. You use that otherwise wasted year working toward getting a Master's degree in teaching. You tell Jenks that you've had to switch majors and will not see him the following year, explaining that it is so you can graduate and get your Master's sooner. All that is required of him is, roughly, "Understood." A phatic "You'll be missed" or "Good luck" would be acceptable, but not necessary.
This is not what Jenks does. He sends a multi-paragraph screed to you, telling you that you should never be a teacher because, in part, you went to the bathroom during one of his three-hour lectures without asking his permission -- something that would be horrifying to do in college. How this man contains such vitriol toward you is baffling. I teach literal rapists and murderers, and I would never write something like that email to one of them, especially for making a responsible and challenging decision. It is beyond unprofessional and frankly bizarre.
So, much as I quarrel with some of your beliefs, Jenks has it in for you.
Incidentally, you never get below a B+ in any education classes at New Paltz and usually have A's. This is squarely the department's problem, not yours. You are a good student and will make a fine teacher one day. You will do this in a situation I guarantee would make any of them crumble, and you will do it with a smile.
(That said, I wish you had been less skittish about taking a statistics course and pursuing psychology instead of education. Being a teacher in the 2020s is a fool's game. I would not recommend people do it if they have another option.)
To ease this, I stated that at least she should have no worries of anyone being so inclined to try to steal me away from her. She smiled brightly at my assertion.
I am cutting the part where you have dolls talk to her. You do not deserve the cuteness attributed to you.
Your life would have been better if you were harder to steal away, but you are in college and uneasy with yourself. No matter who is in your arms -- and it will be Emily for a while -- you never stop looking around for someone more suitable. You did it with Kate and Jen -- and those varied girls whose bras you got off before you dated them. After Emily, you do it only once with your next lover, which fortunately brings you to the necessary crisis that breaks you of the habit.
Still, my not being permitted to buy two highly expensive Spanish books had curdled my mood and greatly increased my stress level.
Your professor Mrs. Fisher -- who called herself Professora Pescadora -- was the only person to make you fluent in Spanish. The entire class felt the same and begged her to continue teaching them the next level, but she could not.
During the first class, she spoke Spanish at a good clip for fifteen minutes, telling you all what was expected of the course and how many exams there would be. Then she looked around the room and pointed out, in English, all the students who needed to drop the class because they clearly understood too much of what she had been saying. You were one of those she told to drop and refused but were flattered.
She assigned you all Spanish names. Yours was Tomas. When one of your classmates had a name that would not lend itself to being made Spanish, they were Lupe.
I doubt there was a person in that class who wasn't conversational in Spanish for its duration.
Let this be proof that you recognize and adore good teachers. Regrettably, this sort did not populate the education department then, at least those who ended up in front of you.
And I lose because I cannot get the jobs I am qualified for because a girl from Long Island that read a book once and understood some of the words is occupying them. (Ye gods, I can be an elitist prick when in this mood.)
Calling yourself on your elitism does not forgive your elitism.
I also teased her about her adolescent self's interest in cheesily title fantasy novels. All in good fun, of course, as I have books in my room that sound like boy band lyrics.
Hey, you publish precisely this sort of book.
the home does not look kindly on male visitors as she refuses to rent to those of the male persuasion. [...] It just impedes my freedom of movement, in that I cannot crash at Emily's whenever is convenient, rather the opposite of what should happen when one goes to college.
Though it is cramped, you crash there whenever you want, and you find more cause to have her at your home.
This is regrettable, as nights next to a college campus easily trump nights at your parents' home -- in a room no less cramped.
Melissa casually mentioned that she possessed her mother's credit card and had something like free reign over its unauthorized use.
That's a lot of words for "Melissa stole her mother's credit card." She would not have called it that, but that is what happened: actual theft. I faintly recall her mother realizing it later and making Melissa pay her back for all the food the four of you managed to put away at Friendly's, which is hardly "free reign." Melissa did not suffer enough consequences for her actions -- or did not internalize them when she did.
This was a lovely night I still recall fondly, but it was also symptomatic of Melissa's mania and lack of control. You were not inclined to contradict its benefits here -- who would dare to be the wet blanket who insisted that none of you should have appetizers and ice cream? -- and maybe there was no restraining Melissa, but this might have been more worrying than carefree. You would never have stolen your parents' credit cards and would have been petrified with anxiety at the thought of spending their money without permission -- especially spending it so frivolously.
Your anxiety is still a pathology, but it is one that keeps you functional in society. Hers repeatedly estranged her from her support system and eventually killed her, so it is difficult to suggest that it wasn't worse, even though it was more fun to be around.
I acknowledge this is a heavy lesson from something that netted you snackatizer platters, a brownie sundae, and a Blue Razz. Manic Pixies -- not that Melissa wouldn't punch you in the arm for this label -- are still undergoing mania.
To Melissa's house we sojourned to watch The Family Guy. Sincerely so utterly hilarious that I could barely breathe at times. Please, dear readers, I beseech you to support this show.
Please don't.