OPEN MOUTH INSERT FOOT
Jan. 31st, 2009 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderpigOh man. Oh man. I made a total fool of myself in my 18thC Lit class yesterday first, by coming in 10 minutes late and then coughing every 10 minutes. Interspersed with frantic gulping down of water. Oh but that's not the point of this post.
I was sitting in the back row and praying to our Almighty Father that I could go through this first class unnoticed because I didn't really have anything intelligent to say about Robinson Crusoe other than that I liked the old kiddies' versions of it where Crusoe didn't have such an enormous love/hate relationship with God. Pages, and pages of it. Nooooo. Well okay.
Dr G starts to talk about how some people felt that calling Friday "Friday" was derogatory because it's like having meeting person A on Thursday, you decide to call him Thursday. Or if you meet someone in a cafe and there's a teapot on the table, you decide to call that someone Teapot. Yes, that was his example. "I'm sure none of you would want to be called Teapots!" he goes on.
So the class is fairly silent for a while because I think we really don't have anything to say about Friday Teapots and he decides to call my name from the register. There is a brief confusion to whether I'm in the class or not (me having slinked in from the back) and then I'm left to fend for myself.
Note: I rarely speak up in classes. The last time I was loquacious enough was during my JS1101 tutorial because people were making very erroneous comments about Japan.
"Um, well. I don't think it's really derogatory," I begin, "I mean. It provides some sort of constancy for him doesn't it? There's a framework for him to work with. There's a Friday in every week so by calling him Friday, he establishes something like a routine -- unless he decides to get rid of that kind of calendar or something..."
At this point, Dr G decides to intercept my answer and go, "There are teapots every where too!"
And for the life of me, I don't know why I said this, but I immediately went (there was a 0.5 second pause): "Yes, and that's why its perfectly fine for you to call any of us teapots!"
Cue laughter from the class (D: I only know how to make the class laugh!!) and this very perplexed/amused/wtf/ithinkshelosthermind expression on Dr G's face. To cover my total embarrassmant I just went rambling on about how his whole life is governed by "like he said (gesturing wildly at the Exchange Student who talked about Time)" time and we can see how Crusoe's very dependent on schedule to get his crops ready on time and ETC.
Oh my god. I hope I haven't ruined all my chances for this semester.
BTW, sorry if I haven't replied any LJ comments so far! I will get to them soon!
I was sitting in the back row and praying to our Almighty Father that I could go through this first class unnoticed because I didn't really have anything intelligent to say about Robinson Crusoe other than that I liked the old kiddies' versions of it where Crusoe didn't have such an enormous love/hate relationship with God. Pages, and pages of it. Nooooo. Well okay.
Dr G starts to talk about how some people felt that calling Friday "Friday" was derogatory because it's like having meeting person A on Thursday, you decide to call him Thursday. Or if you meet someone in a cafe and there's a teapot on the table, you decide to call that someone Teapot. Yes, that was his example. "I'm sure none of you would want to be called Teapots!" he goes on.
So the class is fairly silent for a while because I think we really don't have anything to say about Friday Teapots and he decides to call my name from the register. There is a brief confusion to whether I'm in the class or not (me having slinked in from the back) and then I'm left to fend for myself.
Note: I rarely speak up in classes. The last time I was loquacious enough was during my JS1101 tutorial because people were making very erroneous comments about Japan.
"Um, well. I don't think it's really derogatory," I begin, "I mean. It provides some sort of constancy for him doesn't it? There's a framework for him to work with. There's a Friday in every week so by calling him Friday, he establishes something like a routine -- unless he decides to get rid of that kind of calendar or something..."
At this point, Dr G decides to intercept my answer and go, "There are teapots every where too!"
And for the life of me, I don't know why I said this, but I immediately went (there was a 0.5 second pause): "Yes, and that's why its perfectly fine for you to call any of us teapots!"
Cue laughter from the class (D: I only know how to make the class laugh!!) and this very perplexed/amused/wtf/ithinkshelosthermind expression on Dr G's face. To cover my total embarrassmant I just went rambling on about how his whole life is governed by "like he said (gesturing wildly at the Exchange Student who talked about Time)" time and we can see how Crusoe's very dependent on schedule to get his crops ready on time and ETC.
Oh my god. I hope I haven't ruined all my chances for this semester.
BTW, sorry if I haven't replied any LJ comments so far! I will get to them soon!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 03:46 pm (UTC)Drink more water (:
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 10:29 pm (UTC)so i'm not surprised that it's kind of difficult to comment on it. i mean what else can you say aside from the fact that it's obviously a colonial exercise meant to trumpet values of the White Peepur (specifically, the White Adventurous Male)?
LOL at the whole teapot discussion, by the way. Though I guess calling him Friday was probably part of Crusoe's dedication to God. I'm just winging it a little here because I didn't quite finish the book, but I always thought that Crusoe was so 'on' about the whole divine providence thing and newfound submission to God that he saw Friday's arrival as a kind of divine gift. so what better way to commemorate Friday 'saving his life' (by making it less boring because now Crusoe has someone to talk to and impart his 'civilised' values to; AND he gets a free slave to collect wood for him while he sits by the fire) with a name reminiscent of Good Friday (when Christ began the process of being the saviour)? HAHAHAHA A BIT FAR-FETCHED, but so is teapot!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 08:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 08:34 am (UTC)his whole attitude towards God made me pull out my hair at various parts of the book. it's like, i can understand if his relationship with God is a substitute for human interaction but the way he treats every single thing - like how corn suddenly sprang up from the ground - as divine grace I want to bang my head on the wall. so when Friday starting asking Crusoe all those questions about Christianity, I was pretty happy about that. haha
i really have no idea how the prof thought of teapots. D: he must have been craving for tea.