Trespassers Goes Academic!

A few days ago, I got an email from an old friend from high school.  Actually, she’s now Dr. Old Friend From High School.  Dr. Former Babysitting Partner.  Dr. Drama Club.

Dr. Hold-My-Hand-While-We-Wait-For-The-Talent-Show-Results.

But now, the lady is a professor.  And not only has her pedigree grown over time, but so has her impeccable taste in books.  This coming Spring, she’ll be teaching a course with a narrative writing component, and Trespassers Will Be Baptized will be a text.

Oh Lordy, save us all.

I’m thrilled for the opportunity, I really am.   But receiving this email took me back ten years, to when I was a new college student.  Harvard was a great experience, though not always an easy one for a girl from a small Kentucky town, whose only brush with the prep school crowd up until that time came from watching Facts of Life reruns.  Some of my dormmates came to campus with $500 North Face parkas and trust funding; I came with a letter jacket and beauty pageant scholarships.

Still, my Harvard classmates and I agreed on one thing — we were all much smarter than anyone we were forced to read while we were there.

Something tells me that sort of arrogance isn’t limited to the Ivy League.  If anyone took the time to really dissect the Freshman Fifteen, I think they’d find that much of it is just layers of Kevlar-enforced arrogance, placed there by kids who are terrified of (as Conan O’Brien told us in my class day address) finding themselves on the wrong side of the Bell Curve.  So, when the hour comes to discuss assigned reading, they begin the assault:

“Asinine.”

“Juvenile.”

“Abyssmal.”

And when they professor asks, “Ok, why did you find it so?”

There’s a pause, a collective eye-roll.  Until finally, forced to speak by a pointed professorial finger (and, more than likely, a “must speak aloud three times in a semester” requirement), someone pipes up:

“Because, it just was.  Abyssmal.  If I have to explain the meaning of that word to this class, it means most of them didn’t score perfect on their SATs.  Like I did.”

I’d better start praying now…

Comments