7. There are no videos in English classes.

There are no videos in English classes. Or if there are, I've been signing up for the wrong ones. Almost every other subject shows videos in their classes. I don't care if the video is about baboon mating rituals or the proper ways of delivering a speech. Films are a great way to break away from the everyday school routine. Even when there are movie adaptations of the book we are reading for English class, teachers opt to stick to the text versions only.

Dead Poets Society is a great movie. If I had it my way, I'd integrate the film into every high school curriculum in the nation. For those of you who have never seen the film, it is about an English teacher (Robin Williams) who challenge his students to rethink their perspectives on life through his teachings.

A must-watch for all English students

Not only does the film provide valuable lessons in English, but it helps students become better people as well. The movie has noble ambitions and carries them out in a far more enjoyable manner than most of the other teachings methods found in schools.

One of the most memorable scenes in the movie is the reading of Walt Whitman's poem, "O Captain! My Captain!" The poem is as follows:

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

It is the first literary work read by the students in the English class and it stays with them. As the movie draws to a close, the students salute the English teacher by referring to him as "my captain!" On that note, I think I'm going to download the movie and watch it against for old time's sake. Or better yet, Jay, if you're reading this, I think it's time for you to become our Captain and show us the film in class.

6. Peer Reviews

Honesty is not my forte. So when I'm asked to review my colleagues' papers, I get a bit hesitant. I mean how do you nicely tell someone that their paper sucks? Or what do I say when my classmates ramble on about how good my paper is even though I half-assed it the night before it was due? Fortunately, the former has not been an issue in my current English class because all of the papers I've read so far have been well-written. The latter has not happened yet because I've done all my essays ahead of time, although that may soon change. Or maybe my classmates are lying to me too and don't want to admit that my papers suck. Perhaps, we're nothing more than a confederacy of liars.

Then reality strikes. The essay grading process reaches the next level and we receive feedback from our instructor. Jay Rubin, demon lord of the academia, has no qualms with telling people how shitty their papers are. To be more specific, he wipes his ass with your paper then rubs it in your face in front of everyone. The only positive part about the whole experience is that there's so many students in class and so little time that each individual is ridiculed for only five minutes before Jay moves on to the next hapless victim.

But before that moment of truth, three of us are huddled together, trying to look busy so that we avoid suspicion. None of us wants to read our papers because we're embarrassed. Peer review is like getting tested for drugs. Even if you don't want to, you must hand in your urine sample. It doesn't matter how foul the sample is. All you can do is put on a fake smile and hand container over to the nurse who will put on an equally fake smile to conceal her disgust.

This is what peer reviews remind me of.

5. Too Much Homework

I'm well aware of the two-hours-of-homework-per-hour-of-class rule. Nonetheless, there's too much homework for English class. I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed at the moment. I have to do three more blog entries by tonight and my essay is also due tomorrow. On Friday, I have my Economics and Calculus midterms. I'm also falling behind on my journal. And even though I have Spring Break coming up, every teacher decided to unload a lot of homework on me because they all figured I would have ample time.

But every homework assignment is one step closer to an A so I plow onwards. Furthermore, homework helps me learn the in-class material (sometimes). So even though homework is a bitch, I can now also add that the first clause in this sentence is a metaphor. On the other end of the spectrum, there's moments when I'm doing homework and I'm thinking, "What the fuck? What is the point of this?" Especially, when I spent 4 hours on the first essay only to find out that we were graded on how closely we followed directions rather than actual content. I understand the importance of following directions, but I'm sure there's other assignments better suited for that purpose. Especially because I'm a slow writer to begin with. It takes me a long time to brainstorm ideas and takes me even longer to transfer those ideas onto paper.

All in all, I'm still one of the fortunate ones when it comes to homework. Some of my classmates also work full-time as well. I'm sure they're going through hell right now.

On a random note, I just realized I forgot to do my laundry because I was busy writing this entry. And the laundry facility closes in 15 minutes so fuck my life. I suppose that's karma for writing poorly about homework.

4. Poetry

I like reading a good poem every now and then. However, I do not like writing them. During my sophomore year, my English class did an in-depth study of famous poets and their works. At the end, we, the students, were required to write our own poem. We were told to write about our inner emotions and let our feelings exude out of us. My teacher wanted us to capture the essence of poetry: compact writing embedded with a heartfelt message. Something personal that we want to share with others. I wrote about my favorite video game. I got an F for the assignment.

I'm sorry, but I'm not a very emotional person. After reading the works of Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Maya Angelou and countless others, I realized that my greatest worries in life are trivial. They're trying to free an entire culture from oppression. After reading their poems, I can't write about how sad I was when my dog died.

I'm just not cut out for poetry. I'm not expressive even when I'm talking so there's no way I'm going to be pouring my heart out in a poem. So instead of writing poems, I prefer reading them. Here's one of the first poems I've ever read. I've added a visual in case you're not a poem person either and prefer pictures.


Messy Room by Shel Silverstein

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or--
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!

3. It's right before lunch time.
Do I need to say more?

Unfortunately, yes, I do. Anyway, one day in class, we're doing peer reviews for our essays and I'm trying my best to listen. "Ernest Hemingway was a..." Man, I wonder what I should eat today? "He spent many years in Paris..." I want some rice. "... to befriend other writers so that he too..." Yea, rice. Mmmmmmm." "could become a great writer." RUMBLE RUMBLE. At this point, everyone in my group turns to me and I'm trying my best to get my stomach under control.

Hunger may be good discipline, but Hemingway never ate any of this.

There's something about lunch time that brings out the ADHD side of me. And I don't think it's necessarily because of food. Ever since I was a kid, I associated lunch time with recess. I loved recess so it was only natural that I loved lunch time. It meant an entire hour of play time! Fuck yea! That lunch bell was like cocaine for me. As soon as it rang, I would go crazy and all hell would break loose. I darted out of the classroom with my arms raised, screaming like a hooligan. I didn't even eat lunch as a kid. I would trash the lunch my mom packed me and go straight to the soccer field where I would run around until my high finally wore off.

Fast forward seven years into the future and things haven't really changed. I eat lunch now, but I still get fidgety when it's almost noon. Time has this funny trick where it slows down when you don't want it to. Every ten seconds, I'm looking back at the clock in hope that if I stare long enough, my intense gaze will bend time and class will come to an end. So far, I have not succeeded in bending time.

2. The Nature of English Class
English class by nature is very counterproductive. Math, geography and virtually every other subject in school is cumulative. You are adding onto what you've learned previously therefore there is a linear form of progression. However, English is an interpretive field in which every instructor has his/her own set of regulations that dictate what is acceptable and what is not. And for some reason unbeknownst to me, every English teacher feels that he/she is the lone revolutionist, cleansing students from poor writing. I'm tired of every teacher thinking they're sent by Jesus to teach us the "proper" way to write. English class feels like a whiteboard to me. Each semester I write down notes on my whiteboard. At the of the semester, I wipe my slate clean and learn the new set of rules for my next English teacher. Rinse and repeat.

It's not only the inefficient school curriculum that aggravates me. I dislike the very essence of language. I'm baffled by the idea that there's multiple ways of doing something and they're all equally correct. The only constants in writing are the rules of grammar, but even that is arbitrary at times. Why are there so many different ways to say one thing? Do you really need 10 different ways to say no? Negative. Of course not. Nopes. And so on. Needless to say, I think it's obvious which gender invented language. I won't specify which because I don't want a bunch of hate mail from angry individuals who burn their bras every weekend. By the way, guys can wear bras too so I haven't contradicted myself. Personally, I'm not a fan of wearing them, but I'm not discriminatory.

I will say one final thing on this matter. All famous mathematicians are male and math is a subject where there's only one right answer. Go figure.








The famous mathematician, Pascal, shares his wisdom with the rest of the world.

Introduction

The original title of my blog was "15 Reasons Why I Love English Class." I figured whatever I lacked in writing, I could make up for in the "ass kissing" department. However, there was one minor problem: I couldn't think of 15 reasons. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even think of one.

Three hours and two joints later, I still had a blank page. While my original list stayed at zero, the number of reasons why I hate English class kept growing in my mind - hence the new subject for my blog. Hopefully, my English 1A colleagues will be able to relate to this blog.

So without further adieu, here's my list:

1. English is not my native language.
Most people find this one hard to believe. I don't have any traces of an accent and my vocabulary is quite substantial. But it's true. I was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. Before I go on about my illustrious history, I need to answer the pressing question that is, without a doubt, bothering you at the moment. "Is it North or South Korea that's the Communist country?"

Hahaha... no.
When people tell me that they're American, you don't see me replying, "Native American or a descendant of one of the people who partook in the genocide of Native Americans?" Not so funny anymore, is it? Stuff is always funny until it's about ourselves. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to preach about philosophical matters nor am I an angry Asian venting hatred towards the rest of the world. I'm just a humble student going off on a tangent so that I'll be one step closer to fulfilling the 300-word-per-entry requirement. By the way, North Korea is the communist country.


Anyway, I've derailed off-topic long enough. It's time to enlighten everyone with my amazing life story. I lived in Korea for the majority of my life. It wasn't until I graduated from high school that I moved to the United States. I was accepted into the pre-dental program at the University of the Pacific, but I realized that was not my destiny when a vision from God told me that I was born to save the world and not just people's teeth. Actually, that's just a blasphemous way of saying I had a career change. Unfortunately, I still don't know what I want to do in life, but I do know what I don't want to do. Picking out last night's dinner from people's mouths is not something I want to do. Nor do I want to do anything English-related because I spent most of my life in Korean mode. Despite how fluent I may be in English by national standards, on a personal level, I feel far more secure when I'm speaking and writing in Korean. Nonetheless, there aren't enough Koreans in the United States to warrant our own automated language services when paying bills through the telephone so I'm stuck taking English classes. That's right. You heard it here first, folks. I'm taking English 1A so that I can pay my bills.