I just left my first session of creative thinking. It’s a seminar class. It goes from 6-10 on Tuesdays. It’s awful. Awful connotes many wonderfully lovely words in the English language. Here are a few of mine.
I walked all the way over to Gordon Palmer and overestimated the distance, so I arrived at 5:45. After using my ACT card to buy a Twix and to attempt to buy a Dr. Pepper, I wandered into my new classroom. There was already a full crowd. Eyes met me with looks that could, would, and might kill. I chose a safe seat next to a bearded boy-man and an empty chair in the middle. A few others filled in the C-shaped desk formation and I remember thinking the teacher “looked cool.” I’m not sure what I meant by that, but I was at ease nonetheless. And then came the “icebreakers.”
The first to go was a petite guy wearing a fratty Young Life t-shirt. He looked stern and pissed off. Actually, let me go ahead and say that most of these people seemed very pissed off. He kept his hands up in prayer form for the three hours we were in there. (She let us go early. “Just today though!!”)
Moving down the row, we come across what I believe is a staple in every class, especially these types of scenarios. This girl was tall, had stringy blonde hair and bad skin; she had some Delta ear buds clipped onto her shirt, bracelets coating her wrists, including the WWJD one, which are actually beginning to come back. (I guess Livestrong and WWJD will come and go in waves. Inspiring.) She kept her lips sealed tightly, even when she frequently spoke. It was like she was trying so hard to prove to us that she was a dignified “rock grl” and definitely did not have a country accent. But she did. And it was a funny one. She made several comments referring to how keyed in to music she was, and how she wants to some day go on tour and manage bands (all this being said in her hilariously tight-lipped country accent). My teacher pressed for more, as in, where all she had traveled (“I can never sit still. I just have to keep moving. I love traveling. Put me on a bus, in a car, in a van…I don’t care. I love exploring new places”…deep) and what sort of music she preferred. To the first question, “Well everywhere in the Southeast, pretty much, uh a little bit north, and Hawaii.” Excellent. What a cultured individual. To the second, “Pretty much anything from Christian contemporary rock to Fall Out Boy.” Are there even words? This person who has now been appointed “the music know-it-all” by our class has just listed my two least favorite (and arguably the worst) genres of music. Rock. On.
Sorry I’m not sorry. Ok then we have the outdoorsy redhead from Gulf Shores. Curly red hair, glasses, freckles, tie-dyed shirt, African-looking bracelets she probably bought at WINGS in Destin, and trendy green peacey shoes. She kept her arms folded in such a way to let us all know juuuust how self-conscious she was/is/will be forever. She too had a grimace, and after she singled ME out for not being in New College, (everyone in my class is in New College; I have to take this damn class for my minor) she announced that everyone BUT ME was invited to join her newly created dive club. Good, I don’t want to go SCUBA diving in Lake Fucking Tuscaloosa and see nothing but brown mud and possibly a dead escaped basket case from Bryce circa 1973 anyway. She didn’t say much beyond that. And actually, I left with her and she wasn’t as much of an ass as I’d perceived.
This next guy is my favorite. Heavy set, bad skin, bad teeth, kind of black, kind of white, and had an intricate design shaved into his head. He was also very outwardly gay, which for some unknown reason, has always been comforting to me in social situations. He brought up a lot of good points throughout our you-probably-should’ve-gotten-high-and-then-come-to-class talk about the definition of creativity. We made eyes at each other a few times. (You know, in every class you’ve ever had since kindergarten there is always someone in there you roll your eyes and/or shrug your shoulders with when the teacher says something stupid.)
Seated to the right of my favorite was someone I gauged as being a very nice person. He looked like one of those youth group types. You know, the kind of guys who laugh way too much at corny jokes, throw high-fives, wear high-water cargo jeans, and have awkward leather jackets. It has been my experience that these types of males typically major in web design (ideal for creating youth group Powerpoints) or Political Science (because they believe that being a youth director is a lot like being in public office) and they always know how to play the guitar and they always love musicals (because what else are they going to watch on the way to that mission trip to the beach…?). By the end of the session, I had wished this guy was all those things. He was not. He made condescending remarks and glances in my direction. He was probably pissed off because he was missing a youth group potluck dinner event in some rec room…
So now we’re at the guy sitting next to me. He had greasy thick black hair that had clearly been under a hat all day, a full, very unattractive beard, and two puppy dog eyes. Innocent enough. About fifteen minutes into the class, he became Roger Waters in “Brain Damage” from Dark Side of the Moon. I kept hearing him subtly whisper things under his breath, more like vibrations than words, and chuckling to himself. Harmless. An hour later, I caught a glimpse at the front of his notebook. You know those generic fill-in nametags that say “Hello, I’m” and then a huge blank? In his blank it said “violent” with a sad face for the letter o. So that’s good news.
Let’s skip me for this entry.
To my right sat a wannabe Johnny Carson, in his prime. (Carson’s prime…not this kid’s.) He was decently attractive. He was one of those guys who took way too much pride in being voted class clown in high school. He aspired to be a politician. He kept touching me when he spoke to me, or to the teacher, or to the class in general. I wasn’t down. I’m not even really a hand-holder. He was very friendly though. We shared the better half of the fifteen-minute break. I was already in a bad mood because my teacher thought I was stupid, so later on in the class, he told me I was frigid. For some reason this upset me more. I’m definitely not a sweetheart, because sweethearts are often morons and have little to no emotion, but I am certainly not frigid. Actually I wish I was sometimes. Then I wouldn’t sweat the small stuff quite so much. I left the class with mixed feelings about wannabe Johnny Carson.
The girl sitting next to him was cute, had wavy (possibly oily) hair, and looked like she was about to stab someone. After she read the syllabus aloud for the class, it became clear to me that maybe I’d look like I was going to stab someone too if I couldn’t pronounce my Rs or respect punctuation. Suddenly “real” became “wheel” and semicolons became decorative items on the page. She texted the whole time, so she didn’t particularly irk me.
Another boy was next to her on the corner. He was dressed business casual and had on one of those huge dignified silver watches that guys consider their ticket to looking like an adult. (Regardless of the size of the guy, the watch is always huge and they’re always pushing it up their sleeve.) He was a very acceptable person. He laughed when everyone laughed and played with the lead in his clicky pencil when the instructor was calling me shallow. He later announced that the Underground Anime Club would be meeting immediately following class, which made me wonder if the mainstream anime kids had met during our class, and if they’d be pissed off to know about the underground version of their obsession. (People never like anime. People interested in anime are obsessed. They draw it, they watch it, they swap cards full of it, and they take Japanese courses.) (I will prove this claim later.)
The next girl never talked, showed no emotion, and was dirty. She had on a Bob Marley shirt and supplemented everything the professor stated by adding a declarative “yeah” whenever the woman would breathe. She too was texting for the duration of the class. But I mean she didn’t have to pay attention anyway…she knew everything.
This brings me to the most fascinating creature in our class. Freshman, girl, curvy but not in a “real women have curves” way, black tank top, ripped/patched jeans with the hem let out of both legs, worn out Chuck Taylors, rings on every finger, burgundy-colored hair, intense front bangs and a middle part, and a hieroglyphics tattoo on her neck. Can’t forget the heavy dosage of black eye liner and the million folders and notebooks covered in stickers, spilling out of her trendy graffiti satchel. She sat through class with raised eyebrows and a serious teen ‘tude. When she spoke, I saw bad teeth and heard a deeply country accent. (There is a distinct gap between a country accent and a southern accent.) She spoke very softly and clenched her lips together. (What is with these girls and their embarrassment about being from the South? You can dress like an idiot and worship horrible music AND have a country accent all at the same time…I promise.) Her intended major was a combination of linguistics and Japanese. I found this ironic because she barely spoke, and was a terrible reader aloud, might I add. One of her passions was also anime. Heavy.
There were two girls awkwardly seated in front of everyone. The first made herself comfortable long before anyone else had really gotten there. I could tell she was livid when the second girl sat next to her…stealing her thunder…the nerve. She had red hair as well, though it was three different shades. The root was a tangy red (tangy as in the powdered beverage Tang!), the middle was more fire engine red with a hint of lemon juice, and the bulk was the quintessential redhead red. She was wearing a blue lacy bra beneath her tee-length dress, and her oversized turquoise jewelry seemed to be weighing her down. Though she seemed more upbeat than the others, there was something in her voice letting us know that she was so over this. She was into photography and being outside and music and stuff. Very eclectic individual. “What sort of photography do you favor?” “I don’t know, like senior portraits and stuff.” Mmhmm, fascinating field.
The last girl was so adorable. She was a fresh-faced freshman with her hair straightened, her silver graduation jewelry on, magnified glasses, and a full outfit from Hollister. (Clearly this girl must surf.) She was long and lean and lanky and reminded me of thirteen-year-old, ugh, me. She raised her hand to speak (forgot to add that this is an open forum class) and left her arm so awkwardly bent at a 90 degree angle until the teacher “called on” her. Guess what her concentration of study was? Japanese studies. “I got really into anime when I was a little kid and I started studying the culture of Japan privately a few years ago and now I’m here and I love the language and the art.” I pictured a lanky eleven-year-old with her magnified glasses on telling her mother she wanted to start studying Japanese and anime “like on tv!” and her mother just putting her hands on her face saying slowly, “You can do anything you want.”
I feel like anime is so violent. I mean everything is violent in its own way, just ask Roger Waters sitting next to me.
