so, Middlemarch...
I had started to
re-read Middlemarch on my own, then started this Vic Lit class and thus had an excuse to put it down until required to pick it back up again. Well, this was the week to pick it back up again. We had to read the first ~400 pages for last night's class. I read about 300 (it was a busy week) and came to the conclusion, in Book II, that it doesn't suck. !!??!!
Like I said, this has been a busy week. It's the end of a quarter, which means we often have extra work for clients who have NBOs and have forgotten to get the ball rolling...or something along those lines. Plus, finishing the AR on a book, writing a proposal for another (still doing that...), finishing up edits for my course lessons, and oh yeah, six classes. Anyway, I actually thought about not going to class last night (I'd rather not go to a class than sit in one while sleepy and not contributing) but we only have two weeks to discuss
Middlemarch (I can't abbreviate that as "MM" because to me, "MM" stands for
Michelle Malone and I'd confuse myself). If I skipped the class, I'd never hear the end of it from a certain person (we'll just call her Mel).
Anyway, I walked into class about 15 minutes early, and four people were already in there discussing the book, loudly and with great animation. I just stood there, not awake enough to jump in, concerned that I actually wanted to jump in (where the hell did
that come from?), realized that I had to go to the bathroom and
still couldn't leave. I guess the contrast with my other classes just struck me dumb right then and there...you know, the b-school classes where the people don't do the reading, don't apply any shreds of intellect they might possess, but who will get a job and at the very lowest pay scale will make more money than anyone studying for an English degree probably ever will. I
hate that.
Oh, and my contribution to the class was this: "hoo-ha".
We were discussing Casaubon, and how poor Dorothea didn't get any. Then the Prof was talking about Ruskin and how certain parts of the female anatomy just threw him for a loop. Our Prof is pretty funny, for in a class where the mean age is probably 35, he was attempting to find a delicate way to describe certain nether regions. He said something along the lines of "you don't see it in Greek statues, is that good enough?" The whole room is just blank stares; I'm not sure if people didn't get what he was saying, or didn't
want to get what he was saying....but the really old guy next to me says "could you be more specific?" Seriously. So the prof got sort of red-faced and hemmed and hawed and finally I said "just call it a hoo-ha" (points if you get the
movie reference) and everyone laughed and we moved on.
