Well, today’s catastrophe is all over with. Dr. C’s midterm was four essays. I hate essay tests. I HATE essay tests. I HATE ESSAY TESTS! But I used a lot of big words and some semicolons and talked about “the human condition” a lot, so I think I got about a C.
Then I had to go attend a lecture about Darwin, for some reason, for my pre-1860 American Literature class. Don’t ask me why. First, this guy introduced the guy who was going to introduce the speaker. Then the guy who was going to introduce the speaker proceeded to do so, starting with, “This man needs no introduction.” For a man who needs no introduction, it took an awfully long time to introduce him. Eight minutes, to be exact. We heard all about how he used to fish salmon commercially, how he once saved a man from drowning, and we heard reviews for the three books he wrote.
Then the speaker started speaking. He has apparently devoted his life to studying the way Darwin’s Theory of Evolution has affected American literature. He passed out a list of several of the authors he says were influenced by Darwin. One of them was F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ever since last semester when I wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald into all my term papers, I get the giggles whenever anyone mentions him. So I got the giggles right there in a classroom full of old people.
I couldn’t see the speaker because the girl sitting in front of me was blocking my view. She had a lot of really curly hair, and every time she moved her head, her curls would bounce around. Which really isn’t all that funny, but if you have the giggles, it’s hilarious. So I looked around for something else to look at. On the wall right behind the speaker there was this painting of some teacher. He was old and kinda ugly and had this really stern expression on his face. As soon as I saw that, I thought, “If I paid somebody to paint my portrait and it came out looking like that, I would sue.” That got me giggling all over again.
Then the lady sitting next to me got up and left the room because her cell phone was ringing. Two seconds later, somebody else sat in her seat. I could see who it was out of the corner of my eye. You’ll never guess who it was.
It was Dr. C. So I had to spend the last twenty minutes or whatever of the lecture sitting next to the dreaded Dr. C. Oh, the horror! Yet, for some reason, it made me want to laugh.
But I got through it. Now the next big catastrophe will be my last midterm on Friday.