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Two Irishmen are stranded in a life boat at sea after their ship sank. They're floating along helpless with no land in sight when one of them spies a bottle in the water. He grabs it, opens it, and out pops a genie, who is about to go through his spiel about three wishes when he looks at the two men:
"Ugh. You're Irishmen. I know for fact you've no luck at all, so I'm only gonna give you one wish, and you'd better make it quick."
The one man sputters out "I want the whole ocean to be nothin' but Guinness." And POOF! the genie is gone, and as far as they both can see the ocean is frothy Guinness goodness.
The other Irishman punches the man who made the wish. "You idiot! Now we have to piss in the boat."
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It cracks me up how morning news coverage is all about St. Patrick's Day, wearing green, drinking of course, but do any of these folks know what St. Patrick's Day is about, really? I suppose this happens with all so-called holidays in that we tend to ignore their purpose and meaning in the larger scope for the sake of capitalistic endeavors. Nothing new. The Christians stole much of Christmas from the pagans, but just try to get one of those "keep the Christ in Christmas" folk to admit such a thing.
I'm on a very short break from DU this week, and it feels good to not have to go there for a while. It gives me space and time and the distance provides some perspective. One of the sweet undergrads who works in the Metro English department office came to me on Friday to ask about the DU program because one of the senior faculty told her I was going there. Sadly, when she asked me I simply rolled my eyes and groaned, mumbling something about how it was not a good time to ask because of my current state of loathing and regret with regard to this. I feel bad in retrospect and I did turn it round, telling her that if she wanted to come down some day, I'd introduce her around to people I know and give her a bit of a tour. Just because I'm growing jaded and bitter doesn't mean I shouldn't be encouraging to others to follow their hearts - that would make me as bad as the rest of them I don't like currently. I'm also calmer in knowing that there are people in this department who share my views and stand on my side and I'm not alone. One new face to this group is one of the creative writing faculty with whom I'm taking a writing workshop this coming term, as I've mentioned. I'm quite looking forward to the experience of writing (gasp) what I want to write for a while and also to spending time with this professor. I had lunch with Jennie about a week ago, and she said, "I can't figure out why DU hired her [this person I'm talking about]. She's way too smart, nice, and well-adjusted for the likes of these people." Amen to that, but I'm glad that she and others are here in any case, even though their lives must be a circle of hell in this department. I even told my adviser outright the other day that if he hadn't been here, I'd have quit a long time ago. I'm hoping that my new approach when I go back to school is about being thankful for those I have - these few shining people among the evil - instead of giving energy and power to those who don't deserve either. One can hope.
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