Pardon My French

I really hate writing. Not writing itself, but the writing class I'm in this quarter.

First of all, the teacher is a short, hairy man with a trimmed gray beard. He reminds me of Gimli a little bit - just less awesome (he doesn't have a battle axe). So far, without fail, this teacher has begun each class by typing instructions on the computer projected on the front screen. The class is held in a computer lab, so we then each turn to our desktops and carry out his typed instructions. It's just really weird to me that he would forego saying a single word and just "compunicate" (definition) to the class.

On the bright side, this means that I don't have to hear his voice. Now, that may sound like a mean thing to say. And it is. But this guy seriously sounds like a slightly deeper version of Herbert the Pervert. That's right. He whistles whenever he says a word containing the letter "s". That is SUPER annoying!

Oh! How could I forget? He's an asshole too!

**note: I literally spent at least 30 minutes trying to find a more proper word to describe him, but nothing else conveys the douchebaggery of his character as perfectly. Please forgive me.

Allow me to explain. On Tuesday, class began with an "oh crap" moment as I saw the rest of class walking up to the teacher's front table to turn in the assignment that I thought was due on Thursday. Each class begins with a freewrite, so I took that time to write about how I felt about screwing up:

Here I thought that I had a whole week left to work on this thing. Nope. Of course not. That wouldn’t fit the theme of my life these last few weeks.

I thought, "It's alright. There's nothing I can do about that now. At least I have my powerpoint presentation ready to go for today."

That's when I found out that the powerpoint wasn't due until Thursday. Another "oh crap" moment. I had mixed up the dates the two assignments were due! I must have spent at least two hours working on the powerpoint on Monday and many more over the weekend.

So I walked up to Gimli after class and said as politely as I could, "I'm really sorry but I screwed up. I accidentally mixed up the dates that the paper and powerpoint were due…Is there anything I can do about this?"

Here is what he said verbatim:

"Well that's not MY problem! I can only give you the information as clearly as I know how. I can't process it for you too."

!@#$$%%$#@@$%$@!

I've only hit one person in my entire life, and for good reason (that's a different story though), but this guy almost became number two. I felt the rage swelling inside me but the only outward physical change was an "are you serious right now" look on my face. He eventually told me to just bring it on Thursday.

I left in a terrible mood that made everything around me feel like it wasn't even there. All I could think about was how angry I was at this guy.

Fast forward to Thursday. Today.
I was fully prepared for class with my paper that I should have had on Tuesday AND my powerpoint presentation ready to go. Throughout the day today, I kept double checking everything for this writing class. I made sure that my powerpoint was working on the Windows OS (since I made it on my Mac), reread my paper to make sure it contained all the necessary parts of the assignment, and then packed up my bag with all the things I could ever need for this class. I put my usb drive with the powerpoint on it in a safe pocket and headed off to get to class early.

I got to the computer lab about 10 minutes before class started. I was so ready. I was sure that I had covered all my bases.

So I pull out my usb drive and plug it into the computer I'm sitting at just as a final check. The drive pops up on the external drives list but when I go to open it, I get an error saying that I need to reformat the drive.

WHAT THE!?!?!?

My hands met my face in utter defeat and I thought, "it figures…I shouldn't be surprised".

Thankfully, I was sitting right next to my soon-to-be best friend for life! I quickly explained my predicament and she graciously allowed me to use her laptop to move the files from my drive to hers and then let me use her usb drive to complete the presentation of my pac-man styled "Transactional Communication Model" shown in the video below:



The audio didn't work properly when I showed it in front of the class, but that's an acceptable loss in my book. I finished the presentation and sat back down. That was it. Done. All that work and stress and hair-pulling for less than a minute of presentation time. Whatever. I'm just glad it's over now.

I sat through the rest of the presentations just waiting for class to be over. When that time finally came, I approached the hairy dwarf to hand my paper to him. I gave him my paper and said, "This is my assignment from Tuesday. You told me to brin…." He cut me off. Not by saying anything, but by walking away with my paper. I followed, curious as to whether the "conversation" was over or not. We both walked up to his desk and he pretended to be busy doing something on the computer while I stood on the opposite side waiting for eye contact. Eye contact never happened.

"So…Is it going to be alright? You'll take my paper?" I said.

No reply.

I peered around trying to get him to take notice that there was somebody trying to talk to him. It wasn't working so I gave up and walked out with confirmation that pseudo-Gimli is an ass.

EIGHT
MORE
WEEKS.