Becoming All Learn-ed And Shit

January 31, 1999

By Morgan Carlson

"You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to run a chocolate factory full of big-breasted hookers. But hell, I don't have the schoolin' for that. Time to go back to college for me."

- Dave Atell

School's back! School's back! Hurray! Now we can fill our heads with the collected wisdom of our forefathers, before joining the rat race and kneeling down to better position ourselves to suck upon the corporate cock. (If that metaphor was a little too graphic for you, I apologize. I was going to try to clean up my writing a little to prepare myself for the 'real world,' but I think being dirty is a lot of fun, and frankly, I'm getting too old for self improvement, and I say to hell with it.)

It's always great fun to watch the Hofstra masses start the school year, because, quite frankly, we're a big bunch of dumb fucks. I'm willing to wager that the people I call friends are amongst Hofstra's best and brightest, and let's be honest, our academic records aren't going to impress anybody. Hofstra students can be summed up as one of the following:

- reasonably bright and clever students who goofed off in high school and couldn't get into slightly better colleges (i.e., us)

- brainwashed local kids who have never even considered engendering the thought of perhaps leaving Long Island, because that places them at the great risk of meeting someone who might actually have differing views or opinions from everyone else they know

- students from other states who have never really heard of Long Island and figured: "well, this should be cool. It's New York, right?"

- kids who became very, very lost during the college applications process, and just started applying to every institution with the word 'university' at the end of it. You can recognize these kids on sight. They don't dress like Long Island kids, and they just sort of wander around campus, looking lost. They know something "isn't quite right." Sure, they're going to classes and living on a campus, but something doesn't quite fit. They think that Hofstra doesn't quite "feel like college." We all feel that way sometimes, but these kids can't get over it. They won't be satisfied until their great emptiness is somehow satisfied. I usually just shake my head sadly at them and pat their shoulder.

It's especially rough for me to see a semester begin anew, because I am a writing major. And in writing workshops, you tend to see the same faces each year. And, at the risk of sounding arrogant, some of these kids just aren't going to make it. They assume that because they can string sentences together, they can become a professional author.

"Well, gee whiz, you need specific skills to become a doctor. But I can write. Heck, I write papers all the time. So I must have what it takes to become an author!"

And so, I must endure their prose, year after year. Stories about their boyfriends, and how they thought they were experiencing 'true love,' when in fact it turns out that they were experiencing self-delusion, while their boyfriend was experiencing sex at the reasonable price of a dinner date and a few phone calls a week. Or better yet, stories involving girls named Felicity (why is their name always Felicity? What kind of fucking retarded name is that for a child?) who bravely soldier on is this evil, male-centric world of ours.

It is painfully obvious that the student is not cut out for a writing career. Their style is generic and dull, their vocabulary is extremely limited, and they have little to no creativity or spark. And yet, the professor, who should step in and suggest, in private, that the student should perhaps pursue another avenues, says:

"Great work, Amanda. You're really starting to find your voice."

Voice? This girl can't even find her spell-checker. (Oh, I'm using female pronouns because 97% of the Hofstra writing major community is female.) Well, in case you people were wondering about where middle-aged waitresses come from, I think I've found the source.

But I must soldier on, for the good of my parents. They've really dropped a lot of cash on me, I've noticed.

- The Ayatollah of Rock 'N Rollah -