Before you know it, you're the crazy cat lady in the scary house

Tuition, trolls and Emily

January 02, 2002 ... 1:50 p.m.

Tuition, trolls and Emily [looong]

I just got my tuition bill from my community college. For 12 hours, I must pay $876. $73 dollars an hour. [Tuition was raised fall term and they're thinking of another hike.] Now I realize that, compared to a lot of places, $73 an hour is cheap. It is less expensive than the University of Iowa. But this is a community college (!) and they have raised their tuition by $2/hour every year. I went back to school this summer at $65/hour. In three months, that's an $8/hour hike! Why do they need this money? They don't do anything! The teachers they employ are rarely actually in the building and those that are...well, to be nice, could swap AARP stories. Those who don't fall into either category seem to have earned their diploma from UFC's (Ultimate Fighting Champions) School of Education.

I'm serious.

We had a teacher dismissed for punching a student in the face and breaking his nose! What is wrong with people nowadays?

My very first `college' course was "Masterpieces in Literature--Fiction". I had a teacher who looked like a nasty, little troll. He weighed approximately 3 pounds and was about 4'10". He also had this huge head--he looked like a lollipop. It was really quite impressive. Mr. Nastylittletrollman had this yellowy-white beard and a bald head with a band of hair around his head ear-to-ear. There were only ten of us in this class.

He began the first class by calling roll and then read from a list of the terms required reading. He asked us to raise our hands if we had read any of them. I had read all of them (can I help it if I'm a dork?) and, for some reason, he seemed a little put out with me. Maybe he thought I was lying, but I had read Siddartha and Kafka's The Metamorphosis. In fact, I own them.

And, besides, why would I lie about it? It doesn't exactly up my date-a-bility factor, if you know what I mean.

A few classes later, while discussing Emily Dickinson, he asked our opinions of a certain poem. I raised my hand and, surprisingly, Mr. Nastylittletrollman called on me. Mr. Nastylittletrollman never called on me. Apparently, I had been giving off anti-nastylittletrollman invisibility rays.

Anyway, I said I thought the poem was funny. (It was about a worm getting chomped by a bird and I thought it was amusing--so sue me.) Mr. Nastylittletrollman narrowed his eyes and said in his little troll voice, "Oh, really? Why would you think that? Do you think death is funny? Do you laugh at funerals?" I was stunned; I didn't have a reply. Then he added, with his voice literally dripping nastylittletrollman-evilness, "No, Miss Eibisch, your interpretation is wrong. And not only was it wrong, it lacked the wit with which, I assume, it was intended to be delivered." *OUCH* I thought I was going to burst into tears.

Besides, how can interpretation be wrong? An interpretation is just that.

An I N T E R P R E T A T I O N!

Anyway, three weeks before finals week we are given an assignment to write a 7 page analytical paper on an author we had studied this term. I chose Emily Dickinson (yep, I was being a smartass). I wrote this great paper and handed it in on the next Monday, with the other students. Once the papers were returned, he would give us choice of three topics for our final paper, we couldn`t start the final until they were returned.

On Wednesday (12 days before the final), Mr. Nastylittletrollman handed back the graded papers one at a time, always with an encouraging comment. He got to me, did not give me my paper but said "I need to see you after class." That sounded rather ominous.

I followed him to our student union, which was so crowded we had to talk over the waste can. He pointed out a passage he had underlined and asked where I "got it." I explained my thought process, but he wanted none of that. He actually waved off my explanation. Mr. Nastylittletrollman then looked right at me and said "I want you to bring the references you used to my office on Monday. You know, plagiarism is grounds for expulsion." Then he turned and left. The union had gotten quiet; everyone was staring at me.

I left and drove home bawling. I called my mom at work, crying hysterically. I had never cheated, never! I had never been accused of cheating, never! I combed over the books I had used, trying to see if I had, even accidently, plagiarized. After several hours of reading, I was beginning if I had maybe picked the little nugget of info up somewhere and, however inadvertently, not given the source credit. I had my mom read my sources, she couldn't find anything. I had Bootsie read them, she found nothing. On Monday (1 week to final), I went to his office with all of the books I had referenced in my paper.

Mr. Nastylittletrollman wasn't there yet, so I waited. I was a little early, anyway. I ended up having his secretary read through my books, but she didn't find anything, either. Two hours go by and Mr. Nastylittletrollman never shows up. I call him, reschedule for Tuesday and he doesn't show. Reschedule for Wednesday, still a no-show. Jackass.

I finally have a sit-down with him on Friday (3 days until final paper is due). I put my books on the table and he doesn't even glance at them. He gives me back my paper ("B") and tells me that, for my final paper (60% of my grade, due on Monday), I will analyze and interpret the "Prankquean story in Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce."

Folks, this man-troll is evil incarnate.

Finnegan's Wake is a book that, at first glance, consists entirely of gobbledy-gook. This is the beginning of the prankquean part:

"It was of a night, late, lang time agone, in an auldstane eld, when Adam was delvin and his madameen spinning watersilts, when mulk mountynotty man was everybully and the first leal ribberrobber that ever had her ainway everybuddy to his lovesaking eyes and everybilly lived alove with everybiddy else, and Jarl van Hoother had his burnt head high up in his lamphouse, laying cold hands on himself. And his two little jiminies, cousins of ourn, Tristopher and Hilary, were kickaheeling their dummy on the oil cloth flure of his homerigh, castle and earthenhouse. And, be dermot, who come to the keep of his inn only the niece-of-his-in-law, the prankquean."

WHAT?!?!

I didn't get a choice, I didn't get 12 days to work on it. I studied all weekend and figured out that there was a method to this `Prankquean' madness.

(If you ever need Finnegan's Wake explained, I'm your go-to gal!)

I wrote up the paper and, although it wasn't as good as I had wanted, I handed it in on Monday. I harbored a secret desire that maybe, just maybe, my paper would impress the troll. He read through them and graded them during this last class period. Again, I was last. As we were leaving, he gestured at me with my paper. Then Mr. Nastylittletrollman said "Who told you this?" Jackass.

Can you believe that? It's all true, except his real name is not Mr. Nastylittletrollman.

Although wouldn't it be funny if it was his real name? As in: "Nastylittletrollman? Is that Swedish?"

Maybe not.

This particular teacher went above and beyond the call of nastiness but, while not the norm, he is far from the exception at this school. And for this treatment I am paying an extra $8 an hour? Community College is supposed to be a cheaper alternative to sitting in an auditorium at University, where your teacher doesn't know your name. This is a strong selling point in this school's advertisements. I have one more year here, and then I will gladly immerse myself in the cloak of academic anonymity.

Have a happy day!

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