Internal Monologue
I have a complaint. A SERIOUS COMPLAINT!
The woman is upset, teetering on the verge of waterworks, her voice shaking with emotion.

I'm an all As student. I can't be getting this grade. I want my money back!!
For a moment, she stops, perhaps wondering if she sounds stupid, knowing she does. But the emotion wins over.

This book is CRAP. I'm learning nothing. The teacher can't teach! This is unacceptable!!
She's standing at the desk insisting upon speaking to the department head. I'm not her but I may as well be. And the class I'm in may as well be her math class.

It's going to give me a NERVOUS BREAKDOWN!!!!
She looks as if she's on the edge of one. I feel the same thing, inside.

But the difference between her and I is that I haven't gone so far as to externalize this monologue. It simply boils in me, over and over again, threatening to rise into hysteria and insanity. Threatening to murder my professor.

They call it Reporting I. I suppose it should more accurately be called "And Introduction to Rolling Over and Taking it in the Ass."

I'm getting nothing out of it, being enriched in no way and learning only to feel miserable about my own capabilities as a writer. The instructor seems to thrive on assigning huge amounts of homework (some of it busywork, some serious) and then only collecting random assignments. It's impossible to keep track of what she's assigned and in what format she wants it. There's no positive feedback if something isn't right, only circles and a note:

REWRITE FOR GRADE

TRY AGAIN

DO OVER

NOT QUITE...

OK. FINE. Except that I have other things to do. Like work. Homework. Being a person. Doing the same assignment three times with no feedback makes me feel like a fucking workwhore. I can understand her desire to be the awful editor and make us all sweat. But THIS IS NOT A JOB. THIS IS A UNIVERSITY. I am here to learn and, frankly, she isn't teaching. She's being a taskmaster, nothing more. She's speaking under her breath, and the words are

failure...
failure.....
failure.........

And guess what? She was shipped up from Honolulu to be a professor for a term. And she's going home at the beginning of December. Lucky her. WHY DID THEY BRING HER HERE?

She's too nice a lady to hate but CHRIST, if only I could. In fact, I do. I despise her and what she stands for. I despise her teaching methods and what she is doing to my mind. This class is killing me. I can't get anything else done for the writes and rewrites we have to do. I feel panicked and confused. Every time I enter the class my mind fills with cotton. This is what's closing in on me.

If I didn't know I could write and if I didn't know what I wanted to do and that I can do it well, this course would change my mind. This is why we HATE the journalism program. Does ANYONE like it or does everyone just put everyone up against the wall? I know some of you in the class read this. Does it KILL you too? Does it make you feel like you're a failure?

Right now I'm sitting in the Math Office listening to a grown woman cry to the Department Head because she can't handle math 112. She's frantic and nearly hyperventilating. Normally I might shake my head with a sort of sad sympathy but my hands are almost trembling because I empathize so much. She's absolutely coming undone. At her wits' end. And I know that feeling. I'm embarrassed for her because her efforts are so futile, because they sound so trite. Her voice is pitched on edge, hysteric, angry. She's teeming because she can't keep up, because she can't understand, because she SHOULD and because she's failing even though she's trying. And I'm scared because that's me. That's the voice in my head. That's my anger toward this teacher coming out.

This class is worthless. If it's any indication, this program is worthless. It makes me feel like shit, like a fucking cog, like an inhuman machine. But I'll take it. Because I'm better than this.

And now this woman, whose hysteria so echoes my inner monologue (even the trite concerns like "I'm an all A student, I can't be given a D!!!") has been removed from the math office by the department head kicking and screaming, her calling him an asshole and he threatening to call public safety. She's beyond her wits' end, she's into the deep end. Is this where I'm headed? Is this what's to become of me?

Her words are running like diarrhea out of her mouth. She can no longer control this thing inside her. The emotion possesses her, her fear and anger are a black beast. I feel the urge to vomit rise within me. I feel my guts twist with fear and recognition, my breakfast boiling in my bowels, the words of a thousand essays and articles spinning through my head. Every time I've felt like a failure has made it closer to the truth. She will fail. I will fail. We are doomed to break.

No, I won't. I won't break. Because, someday my professor, in her cozy little Hawaiian nest, will be reading about MY FUCKING PULITZER PRIZE.

I hate you, SOJC!!!! I hate you for making me hate journalism! I HATE YOU!!!!

Don't send me an ex-writer whose only weapon is opinion. I'll send her back to you with her eyes bloodied and a broken nose.

Send me a teacher who wants to teach. Then we'll talk.