Letters

Dearest Marlen,

Earlier today I decided to make spaghetti for lunch. I often cook spaghetti because it is simple and it coincides with my sub-par cooking skills. Another reason I often choose to cook is because the preparation that it entails. Even something as simple as boiling water is time in my day that I get to myself to stop and think about my day, which usually turns into some sort of deeper thought.

As I’m standing over the stove, watching the water sit still in the pot I start thinking about the various papers I have due at the beginning of the week for my various classes. As I’m thinking about the 5-7 page paper you have assigned to us I can’t help but to stop and wonder if it’s all worth it. Is the waking up at 7 o’clock, the blogging, the poetry and the ridiculous amount of work that we are assigned three times a week, worth it? To be honest with you, I’m pretty open-minded about everything in life. I think everything out before I make any spontaneous decisions in life, usually to protect myself and those around me. This is why I remained in your class even after you drilling into our skulls that it was going to be an asinine amount of work. Was it worth it? I’m not a fan of mythology. Was it worth it? I despise reading things that I don’t get to choose? Was it worth it? I have a Spanish 201 class that I’m doing quite pathetic in because I haven’t committed the necessary time to be successful, as well as two classes revolving around my major and a fifth class to go along with these. I have to sit and think about the fact that I have four other classes on top of this one, a class which revolves around a bunch of shit that doesn’t exactly rip me out of bed in the morning because I can hardly contain my excitement to walk in the door and learn another step of the monomythic journey.

So was it worth it? In a word, yes. Why? Perhaps it’s because this class pushes me to an extreme that most professors are afraid to do to their students these days. Every time I look at the syllabus the night before class I get pissed off about the amount that we need to read. My first reaction is to moan about the fact that if my four other classes were this work intensive I’d never be able to get all of my work done, and then I sympathize with those that have jobs and juggle what I juggle at the same time. I do my work with a chip on my shoulder, and finish feeling no more complete as a person as I did before I started my work that day. What makes it all worth it are those in class discussions by my peers, and those five minute lectures you give that you seem to know verbatim like you’ve done it a million times before. It are those moments that something is said, that are of no significance at 8AM, but I think about later in the day, later in the week, or maybe I won’t use again for a year, or ten. What has made this class worth it is the fact that you push me when everyone else in life seems afraid to, both in school and in life, the fact that it pisses me off but I’m forced to suck it up, deal with it, and hope that it all pays off at the end of the semester, and at the end of this journey. What makes this class worth it is the fact that while I may hate the hell out of you now, I’ll thank you for all for it later.

In advance, thank you,

Nick Townsend