August 19, 2004
as sophomoric as I wanna be
BrilliantEditor and I are talking about how to get a job doing editing work. It's a big world out there and not everyone is familiar with the delightful, yet staggeringly intellectual, creature that I am.
He tells me that I will need writing samples. But I don't write! Nothing serious anyway. I'm even fooling around with writing something longer than I'm used to writing and it isn't serious either.
So I went back to college. The stuff I'd written in college, anyway. I was pleased to know that I saved a paper that I wrote for an ornithology class. On the front I got this note:
Dotty--This is an effective paper, well-written, and professional. Aside from not including a cover page (!), I don't have any substantive comments for improvement. You took available opprtunities to put your own spin on the topic--that's great. 148/150
Yo. It is not good. My antecedents don't correspond to my cedents. There are omitted words, awkwardly constructed sentences, and a mark that looks like it came from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (That could have come later, but still!) It's written in a droning and miserable tone that I apparently took for academic. If you saw the commercial from a bajillion years ago when the teacher is at the front of the class saying, "Supply. Demand. Economics." (then a new person comes in and opens the blinds) you'll know what this sounds like.
There are some behaviors that could be interpreted as anti-infanticide behaviors. Nest guarding, while traditionally viewed as a defense against predators, may also help defend against conspecific killers that could be considered predators. Nests that are guarded have a lower incidence of infanticide.
No kidding? When you guard stuff fewer bad things happen? Shocking!
It did have an awesome title though. Infanticide: It's All For The Best
So I go to BE and look at him wondering if he knew what a fool he'd married. "Hey. I just reread some stuff from school. The stuff I where I got good grades. It sucks. Really."
He asked how many thousand more words I'd read. I thought to myself, "Well, I stopped reading about the bird stuff for the most part. I could start again, I suppose, but that wouldn't really help..."
"I'm sorry?" That's what I really said.
"You've read a lot more since you were a sophomore. You've written a lot more since you were a sophomore. Of course it's going to seem sophomoric."
Then Sprocket walked in, wagged her tail, flopped onto the floor, and groaned a happy groan.
"Look at her. You can be as sophomoric as you want. She won't care."
Sophomoric then, by default. Sophomoric now, by de choice.
Posted by dotty at August 19, 2004 05:15 PM