Inhuman

  Clinched teeth Sechin guy 
  Originally uploaded by Jodi3425.

I am not human. I take grammatical and syntactic errors as personal assaults. I'm in a rage as I read my honor's student's paper. I've read the chapters through several times. But errors, horrendous, world-destroying unbearable errors, remain. Why, why, why is she unable to use the appropriate preposition? Why, why, why must she begin so many, many sentences with "However," "Therefore," and "It is."  Why, why, why can she never follow up 'one' with 'one' but instead bogs down in a pronoun extravaganza of he's, she's, it's, and their's? Why does she use the word individual when I have excised it from many a draft? Why do paragraphs and sentences follow one another willy-nilly, with no rhyme or reason or prioritizing, sequentializing, logic? Why can't she ever use a semi-colon correctly? Why after I've gone over and over the chapters already and this is now the penultimate draft?

I want to scream and yell and heap profanity and abuses upon her. I can't be nasty enough to express my furious rage. I want every line of my corrections to overflow with expletives. I doubt I even know profanity adequate to the task of giving voice to my seething fury.

And, the thing is, the paper is actually pretty good. It has an independent argument that is developed and sustained through readings of some pretty challenging texts.

Comments

[Adam Kotsko]

The last paragraph made me laugh out loud.

You might want to talk about Claire about the possibility of doing Tuesday Hatred next week. (I would cede the Confession to Claire, so that would give you a bargaining chip.)

[Jodi]

That's mighty nice of you, Adam, but I think that I am not alone in greatly admiring Claire's ability not only to hate but to give voice to hate. I find my capacity to hate enriched and enlivened by her weekly tirades. In fact, I think she's deepened my own affection for the profane and obscene and instilled in me a greater desire to express it.

[Claire]

Jodi,
Thank you. I am pleased to know that I have awakened your desire to express the profane and obscene.

[NotOften]

Hopefully your honour's student doesn't read this Jodi... you could burst her pronoun bubble!

Very nice post. It sounds much like my own appreciation of my own writing!

[Jodi]

Claire--you are very welcome

Not Often--I hope so, too--if she does read this, then she's in trouble because she should be working on her revisions. But, I also thought that she would take it with a grain of salt since it's pretty clear that I am off the deep end with absolutely no sense of proportion.

[NotOften]

It is interesting to follow the patterns of one's blogging. sometimes the posts can seem so optimistic and hopeful, and other times exactly the opposite. I noticed that your posts since your return have been very negative, but still thought provoking. It seems as though you didn't want to return home...

[Jodi]

Not Often--you're a good reader! I was very happy to see my partner and miss him terribly. He'll be back at the end of the month, but it seems like a very long time.

[NotOften]

awe, you really know how to make a (new) grad student blush. a good reader? who me? the students I am teaching lately seem to think I just make things up... they were beginning to convince me!~ Now I can completely take your comment out of its context and say "Jodi Dean said so...trust me".
best regards,

[dreamduke]

isn't the point of writing to break through the confines of representation...

to reach that smooth space where periods no longer matter and prepositions are but long forgotten rules of the law...

or does this just annoy you to no end...

[Jodi]

dreamduke--you must be a troll with that sort of horrendous taunting.

[hugh]

You may feel inhuman, but the thesis form reveals your student as inhuman, as a stuttering apparatus stringing words together. Or at least, that was my experience reading a (not bad) Master's thesis recently.