School Stories 10 - English - Tell Me Something Interesting About Yourself

Well, I just know I'm going to have tons of stories about school this term; I always do. I will probably also have a bunch of stories about my little house that I'm moving into, but more about that later.

My Intro to Critical Theory class kind of makes my brain hurt. I initially thought I was going to hate it, actually, and towards the end of the class I decided I think it will be okay. I guess we'll see. The professor seems really interested in things like "What is race?" "What is gender?" "Why do we have race?" "Is there race?" "Why do we have gender?" "Is there gender?" He says our class is about asking questions that people don't usually ask. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I like to ask questions, but.... I like gender roles. I like being able to label things. If I say that I want Italian food, it's easy, and communicative, and maybe there are some Italians that eat Chinese food, but people are going to know that I mean pasta. And that isn't a bad thing!

Anyway, at the end of class we went around the room and we were supposed to say our name, where we were from (almost everyone was from SLC. Like 1/7 of us were from other places.), our major (it's a required upper division class for English majors, sooooo I think everyone but like one girl said that they were majoring in English. They had different other stuff with it, though...), and something about ourselves that made us unique or whatever. The professor said that sometimes partway through the semester he sometimes finds out that someone is suuuper into water polo, or that they own their own business, or whatever, and he's always just like "why didn't I know that?" so he wanted us to say that stuff.

It was kind of interesting though, because if you had to just choose one thing about you, that people would remember about you, what one thing would you tell? I think for some people it's easier, because their whole life is permeated by soccer or something, but for everyone else it's an interesting question. People had a wide variety of answers, and I collected them to share here.

1. Speaks English as a first language and Spanish as a second language. Thinks in both languages. When he is tired, things come out in Spanish, which confuses other people.


2. LIKES BEER. A LOT. Likes brewing it, drinking it, anything with it.


3. Plays water polo.


4. Favorite thing to do is coach cheer.


5. Likes to write. [Seriously? You couldn't come up with anything better than that?! It's an English class. 2/3 of us like to write. AND, not only that, nobody asked what she likes to write. Poetry? Short stories? Who knows.]


6. Works at the library and "enjoys seeing what the community values in literacy."


7. Also plays water polo.


8. Has worked with at-risk kids since she was 16, and it's her second biggest passion--next to English. [Passionate about English over touching people's lives? Ooookay.]


9. Plays table tennis competitively.


10. Her name is "Carusa" (sp?) buuuut she goes by "Cricket." [Cool.] [Tracy?]


11. Likes participating in haunted houses. [Awesome random thing.]


12. Coached two different little league teams to... district? finals? championships? I forget.


13. "The only thing I like better than a long walk or a good nap is a new friend in a new language." [He has a good hand on Russian. Can speak Ukranian okay. And in Spanish he knows how to ask where the bathroom is.]


14. Doesn't speak Spanish. [Looks very Central American, and she says people come up to her and start speaking Spanish daily.]


15. Trained formally in oil painting and drawing.


16. Two favorite things are writing and sky diving. [ = my new best friend. But she doesn't know it yet.]


17. Is a life student. Said she will die before her loans are paid off.


18. Just started a girls bike club. Critical mass! Alleycat! [The teacher was like, you're using jargon, what are you talking about?] Critical mass you can ride any kind of bike (motorcycle), and it's the last Friday of every month. People meet at Gallivan Plaza at 5:30 pm to ride as a group and "make a statement" that you don't have to drive. Alleycat is actually this time called "AlleyScat" because it's music themed. You can ride any kind of bike for that too. It's like a scavenger hunt. [Not really sure how that works, but it almost almost makes me wish I were into biking. Almost.]


19. Likes "watching teachers teach and make mistakes" [our professor was like "!!?" and he said "so I don't make them" and it was because he's becoming a teacher.]

That was probably half or two thirds of the people. Neat though, huh. People are interesting.