Bronzed, But Not In Heaven

English 4210 - 18th Century English Literature - I don't really know why I started these course blogs with the course number. The number doesn't mean anything to those that didn't go to UW, but since I started it this way I feel that I need to finish this series in the same manner.

Like most of the English Professors at UW, the professor for this course was no dummy. He knows his stuff. He went to Yale, Columbia, and Cornell for a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D respectively. He also is the head of cultural programs at UW. Apparently this program is one of the best in the country, but I have no arguments to back that up; a number of people have told me this though.

I would like to share two quotes I wrote down in the notebook I used for this class. First quote: "It is quite a relief to have a class where everybody can write, so at the end of the semester I am going to have you all bronzed." I might have shared this before in a blog a while back but it is important, especially when taking into consideration my feelings in Middle English Lit. This was only the semester right after that class and even though I was able to turn it around in that class I wasn't confident that I could write the stuff these upper level courses were looking for. Naturally, it was good to hear this from the professor. I didn't take it too seriously, but this guy is a serious fellow and if he throws "all" in there I knew that I was at least decent, or on the right track, and that was all I needed to keep on going.

The second quote was not as uplifting as the first. "I am not worried about the Rapture. I don't want to be in Heaven anyway. I want to be somewhere else where all the interesting people will be." This was toward the end of the semester and by then I had a tremendous amount of respect for this guy, so what he said was a bit hard to swallow. I actually spit it back up, spit on it some more, and then stomped on it pretty hard--I am pretty sure I killed it, but not before it ate away at me. These out of nowhere jabs at someone's beliefs really hurt. I want to rage when I hear things like this, but then it would be all too easy for these people to appear right. They are not right. A man can't hear much of the world if he spends all his time on it looking for affirmation of himself.