I love Dalí. But more than that: I wish I had back my Salvadori Dalí term paper! That term paper netted me 2 straight A's.
I feel a little guilty on that score. Submitting the same paper twice? Kind of takes the edge off the brag, a little. It could be morally thorny. But I could feel guiltier, for any number of a severality of reasons:
1. It was grade school, man!
2. It was art class. Come on. We're talking grade school art class.
3. Is it really plagiarism if you do it to yourself? Well, it's self-plagiarism. One must admit that. But is it plagiarism? That's a point less clear. Think about this: a lot of time, if you're going on for a thesis, you could submit some shit you did already and there's no issue there (Chicago University's Anthropology Department accepted Vonnegut's published novel Cat's Cradle as his thesis - and those anthropologists are notorious sticklers!). You might end up re-working it, sure, but in a lot of cases as long as it's your work, then blammo.
4. Suddenly I realize it was NOT grade school. I kept trying to fit the class and classroom into the grade school building, and curriculum, and it was definitely high school. No. Definitely high school not grade school. Which if anything, makes my thesis comparison that much more apt.
5. A lot of people may be only imperfectly familiar with the term "grade school," I find. They call it primary school, or elementary school, or grammar school. Sometimes the grades 5-8 are referred to as "Junior High." All of this is asinine, people: it is GRADE SCHOOL. That's what we called it. Kindergarten is its own separate thing, then grades 1-8: "grade school." Nobody in high school really refers to himself or herself as a 9th grader, as a 10th grader, and so on. Yes, the terms are used, technically and officially, but it always seemed so quaint and cutesy to us. We weren't 9th graders; we were merely freshmen.
6. Notwithstanding all that, I was often known as a college freshman to refer to myself as a 13th grader. Just to distinguish, just to be extra clear. If I'd gone on and on in my education, to postgraduate work and the like and such, I'm sure I would have kept that up all the way to through to the 25th grade or however long it took me to get that sweet, sweet PhD. But I never could come up with a real corker of a thesis idea, so I figured, best not to start down that path. If only I'd kept my Dalí paper.
Wow! As you can see, this has become quite the wide-ranging and in-depth meditation on the nature of our nation's (or should I say, our stereotypical western civilization's) educational system. Nice.
But in all the shuffle, we seem to have lost Dalí.
Perhaps the biggest factor in why I can't feel too guilty about submitting my same slammer of a Salvador Dalí paper twice, would be the way it all played out. First, I was really pleased with that paper the first time! When I put it in for Mrs. Wright. She was kind of cantankerous (dealing with all those high school art class types for decades!) but with a real kind of hard-to-spot sweetness under it. Good ol' Mrs. Wright. We got along okay! And she gave my really very much top-notch Salvador Dalí paper an A. Maybe even, an A+.
That paper was probably the first thing I wrote that I think was really quite good, on merit.
So a term or three later, Mrs. Wright, who had been there forever, was out, and we had a new art teacher. She was younger, but not young. She seemed a little "self-styled" to me. I get the idea she smoked pot. You know the type: arty. I thought my Dalí paper would be sure to please.
She gave it an F!! And absolutely no meaningful explanation besides! A red-pen "F".
I couldn't believe it. At first I was like, "what the fuck?" Actually, I'm still like that. I asked her about it during the next day's class. She was pretty indignant to be questioned. She pretty much called me out. The whole class stopped and watched. She told me there was no way I could have written it, that it had been clearly copied directly from a book (this pleased me insanely! But given the situation, I kept it from my face). She challenged me to read it out loud, in front of the class. I was terribly shy at the time, but I already had the paper in my hands, I was already standing. I started reading - these were my words. I was proud of that paper.
A little bit into it, she began interrupting; correcting my pronunciation, as if to say: "you don't know these words, boy." I looked up from reading and kind of cocked my head to the side. I think I might even have laughed a little, involuntarily, as I asked her: "You don't think I talk like this, do you? Out loud? These are read words, not spoken ones." I finished reading. The whole class was kind of like, "what the hell is this? We signed up for art class, not drama class" - but they did appear to like the paper, and I read it out pretty damn strong. Miss Whateverhernamewas was seemingly not-quite-convinced, but clearly now unsure and maybe relenting a bit - only a bit. Still out for some point. She took back the paper, glancing through it. She had some more questions for me; I stood there answering. I really did know my subject - even a couple of terms after the fact, I'd really put in the research on that paper, and those weird surreal facts had wrapped and clung to the pulsing cracks and crevices of my brain! Maybe there is something to be said for having students do papers, after all. I mean from a purely "learning things" perspective. I always thought it was a very stupid thing to make us do, but I guess I can grudgingly admit: maybe there's something to it.
The sour, half-hearted 3rd-degree was cut short as one girl in the class, on the far side of the big rectangular arrangement of work tables - a girl who honestly, I don't think we ever got along (not that we didn't - I mean that we barely knew each other) - suddenly she was on her feet and defending me. I swear - she looked furious. She was respectful, I guess, technically - voice tight, eyes blazing! I had to snap my mouth shut, it had dropped open. She said something about me being really quiet but knowing the English language backwards, sideways and upside down. Okay, not those exact words, maybe. That righteous anger in her eyes has burned her words away, alas! Probably all she said was that I was really quiet but really smart.
Anyway, I think at that very moment I noticed something: I wasn't shy. And at that moment I realized, I didn't think I ever had been shy. I was just really quiet. I sat back down.
I kept looking at the teacher, but not in a challenging way - I pretty much no longer cared. I'd said my best piece, and let go of the outcome. But I had to keep looking at her. I stared in a level and drained way. I couldn't look down! Fuck that. There was nothing to look at, down by hands. But I couldn't look anywhere else. I couldn't risk - I just didn't want to look at that girl. I was sure that I'd probably put way too much gratitude and adoration into that look, for either of our comforts! I was so relieved! It was merciful rescue. She didn't have to do that.
When I thanked her after class, that might have been the last time I really thought of myself as shy. That was an extenuating circumstance.
I still remember the final line of that paper:
"Only the cleanest flies," he stressed.
I feel a little guilty on that score. Submitting the same paper twice? Kind of takes the edge off the brag, a little. It could be morally thorny. But I could feel guiltier, for any number of a severality of reasons:
1. It was grade school, man!
2. It was art class. Come on. We're talking grade school art class.
3. Is it really plagiarism if you do it to yourself? Well, it's self-plagiarism. One must admit that. But is it plagiarism? That's a point less clear. Think about this: a lot of time, if you're going on for a thesis, you could submit some shit you did already and there's no issue there (Chicago University's Anthropology Department accepted Vonnegut's published novel Cat's Cradle as his thesis - and those anthropologists are notorious sticklers!). You might end up re-working it, sure, but in a lot of cases as long as it's your work, then blammo.
4. Suddenly I realize it was NOT grade school. I kept trying to fit the class and classroom into the grade school building, and curriculum, and it was definitely high school. No. Definitely high school not grade school. Which if anything, makes my thesis comparison that much more apt.
5. A lot of people may be only imperfectly familiar with the term "grade school," I find. They call it primary school, or elementary school, or grammar school. Sometimes the grades 5-8 are referred to as "Junior High." All of this is asinine, people: it is GRADE SCHOOL. That's what we called it. Kindergarten is its own separate thing, then grades 1-8: "grade school." Nobody in high school really refers to himself or herself as a 9th grader, as a 10th grader, and so on. Yes, the terms are used, technically and officially, but it always seemed so quaint and cutesy to us. We weren't 9th graders; we were merely freshmen.
6. Notwithstanding all that, I was often known as a college freshman to refer to myself as a 13th grader. Just to distinguish, just to be extra clear. If I'd gone on and on in my education, to postgraduate work and the like and such, I'm sure I would have kept that up all the way to through to the 25th grade or however long it took me to get that sweet, sweet PhD. But I never could come up with a real corker of a thesis idea, so I figured, best not to start down that path. If only I'd kept my Dalí paper.
Wow! As you can see, this has become quite the wide-ranging and in-depth meditation on the nature of our nation's (or should I say, our stereotypical western civilization's) educational system. Nice.
But in all the shuffle, we seem to have lost Dalí.
Perhaps the biggest factor in why I can't feel too guilty about submitting my same slammer of a Salvador Dalí paper twice, would be the way it all played out. First, I was really pleased with that paper the first time! When I put it in for Mrs. Wright. She was kind of cantankerous (dealing with all those high school art class types for decades!) but with a real kind of hard-to-spot sweetness under it. Good ol' Mrs. Wright. We got along okay! And she gave my really very much top-notch Salvador Dalí paper an A. Maybe even, an A+.
That paper was probably the first thing I wrote that I think was really quite good, on merit.
So a term or three later, Mrs. Wright, who had been there forever, was out, and we had a new art teacher. She was younger, but not young. She seemed a little "self-styled" to me. I get the idea she smoked pot. You know the type: arty. I thought my Dalí paper would be sure to please.
She gave it an F!! And absolutely no meaningful explanation besides! A red-pen "F".
I couldn't believe it. At first I was like, "what the fuck?" Actually, I'm still like that. I asked her about it during the next day's class. She was pretty indignant to be questioned. She pretty much called me out. The whole class stopped and watched. She told me there was no way I could have written it, that it had been clearly copied directly from a book (this pleased me insanely! But given the situation, I kept it from my face). She challenged me to read it out loud, in front of the class. I was terribly shy at the time, but I already had the paper in my hands, I was already standing. I started reading - these were my words. I was proud of that paper.
A little bit into it, she began interrupting; correcting my pronunciation, as if to say: "you don't know these words, boy." I looked up from reading and kind of cocked my head to the side. I think I might even have laughed a little, involuntarily, as I asked her: "You don't think I talk like this, do you? Out loud? These are read words, not spoken ones." I finished reading. The whole class was kind of like, "what the hell is this? We signed up for art class, not drama class" - but they did appear to like the paper, and I read it out pretty damn strong. Miss Whateverhernamewas was seemingly not-quite-convinced, but clearly now unsure and maybe relenting a bit - only a bit. Still out for some point. She took back the paper, glancing through it. She had some more questions for me; I stood there answering. I really did know my subject - even a couple of terms after the fact, I'd really put in the research on that paper, and those weird surreal facts had wrapped and clung to the pulsing cracks and crevices of my brain! Maybe there is something to be said for having students do papers, after all. I mean from a purely "learning things" perspective. I always thought it was a very stupid thing to make us do, but I guess I can grudgingly admit: maybe there's something to it.
The sour, half-hearted 3rd-degree was cut short as one girl in the class, on the far side of the big rectangular arrangement of work tables - a girl who honestly, I don't think we ever got along (not that we didn't - I mean that we barely knew each other) - suddenly she was on her feet and defending me. I swear - she looked furious. She was respectful, I guess, technically - voice tight, eyes blazing! I had to snap my mouth shut, it had dropped open. She said something about me being really quiet but knowing the English language backwards, sideways and upside down. Okay, not those exact words, maybe. That righteous anger in her eyes has burned her words away, alas! Probably all she said was that I was really quiet but really smart.
Anyway, I think at that very moment I noticed something: I wasn't shy. And at that moment I realized, I didn't think I ever had been shy. I was just really quiet. I sat back down.
I kept looking at the teacher, but not in a challenging way - I pretty much no longer cared. I'd said my best piece, and let go of the outcome. But I had to keep looking at her. I stared in a level and drained way. I couldn't look down! Fuck that. There was nothing to look at, down by hands. But I couldn't look anywhere else. I couldn't risk - I just didn't want to look at that girl. I was sure that I'd probably put way too much gratitude and adoration into that look, for either of our comforts! I was so relieved! It was merciful rescue. She didn't have to do that.
When I thanked her after class, that might have been the last time I really thought of myself as shy. That was an extenuating circumstance.
I still remember the final line of that paper:
"Only the cleanest flies," he stressed.
Comments
But maybe it's better remembered as a symbol of itself, rather than meticulously examined through a decades-later lens.
Not that yours would, but most of my papers seem to suck now, even the ones that were top-notch.
However, I do wish I had my 30-plus page paper on Lou Reed. The professor asked to keep the copy I gave him (minus the attached Berlin album) because he liked it so much---the first A+ he'd given, he told me. Then my word processor started getting wonky and I lost my copy of it.
I still have the index cards, though. I like to tell myself I could rewrite that damn thing any time I want.
That was one of those classes you wish you could take again and again to know more, but also just to do it all over.
He probably still has his copy. It would be a kick for him to hear from you I bet.
And if he DOESN'T have it - he should feel that little conscience prick of being such a heel, asking to keep people's Lou Reed papers when he doesn't even intend to keep them!
That's what people call me. The "Little Conscience Prick."