Return of Memoryfest - Day 25/31

[bironic]

Horror of horrors, I have not written any classroom-related memories except that one about the spelling word mispronunciation when we were eight years old. And school has been possibly the largest shaping force in my life other than my parents. For shame!


25. High School

Most of my favorite middle school and high school teachers were English teachers—not much of a surprise there. Along with P. (see here and here) and the woman I had for creative writing, one of my most dear teachers was Mr. F., close to retirement, a fellow language geek and science fiction and fantasy fan, supporter of my blossoming fanfiction-writing habits and donator of books to my needy shelves. Really sweet, kind, knowledgeable man with a sometimes filthy sense of humor. I had him for Honors English one year and stuck with him for a linguistics elective. We still keep in occasional touch.

Most of which is irrelevant to what I'm about to share. :)

One day in his English class we stumbled upon the subject of the Devil in literature, and he asked if anyone knew the Devil's name in Goethe's Faust, which wasn't in our curriculum. Being me, I'd read the first part of the play two years earlier for fun (because Lestat kept referencing it in Anne Rice's mostly abysmal Memnoch the Devil and I'd been curious) and had picked up the basic plot and a whole host of new words and phrases like "will o' the wisp" and "Walpurgis Nacht." After waiting a few moments for someone else to raise his/her hand and steeling myself to answer, I put my hand up and said "Mephistopheles" and felt that horrible-great combination of shame and pride for knowing the answer when no one else did.


Hey. Anyone have any requests or prompts for the remaining few memories?

Comments

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I hated that feeling and I thought I'd get past having to feel it once I got to college where people actually CHOSE to be there. Alas, in my very first Composition class, we were revising old essays as a class so we'd know what the professor was looking for and how she graded. There was a repetitive phrase somewhere in one of them, I can't remember exactly what it was, but the professor asked why she'd marked it to be taken out. I replied with, "Because it's a tautological redundancy." Ha ha! Language joke! The professor laughed. The rest of the class looked at me like I had six heads. Nobody else got it. I was still surrounded by idiots. :(

But that's too new. Something older... And unrelated. Because I enjoy being random.

I've always been a clutz and a half (except when I'm in the city, weaving between people in crowds, for some reason) but the first time it ever seriously caused a problem was when I was in third grade. I was being chased around the playground and in my attempt to get away from the boy in question, my stupid foot got caught in some playground equipment. Since I was stuck, he managed to catch me and push me down. My foot stayed firmly lodged where it was and the whole rest of my body rotated and my tibia broke. It didn't really hurt at first. I got up and tried to go back to playing but I couldn't walk right. The playground monitor told a boy named Danny to help me to the nurse. We managed to get all the way inside before I really didn't think I could walk anymore. So Danny carried me to the nurse's office. And he told me my hair smelled nice. :) It's the first time I remember ever being complimented on something that wasn't academic.

[Deleted and edited because the first paragraph sucked the first time around. I was writing porn in another window. Shh.]