My Literature Class: "Get A Divorce!" Girl

I know why this girl annoys me so much.  I'm pretty sure that at the age of 14, I was her.  I don't think I was her at the age of 18, but what do I know?  I'm not much good at self-awareness, even now, much less then.

She got a 102 on the quiz we had last week, which is annoying, but has not much to do with me.  Except she brings it up in every class.  Now, I got a 97, which is nothing to sneeze at - and I would have had a 102 if I hadn't completely whiffed on two questions that I should have gotten right.  (Reading for comprehension, people.  Is very important.)  But I know that the guy who sits right next to me did not fare so well.  He's a non-traditional student, too, and I constantly admire his self-restraint in this class.  Because if I were him, I might have done something regrettable by now.

It's not just this, and it's not just that she makes up jokes a three-year-old could come up with and then completely brings class to a halt to announce them in a voice that dares you not to give her the admiration for her "wit" that she thinks she deserves.  No, it's not just all that, although, none of that makes me want to love her.  The nail in her coffin is the stuff she blurts out in group discussions.

Now, I am totally a blurter.  I say things without thinking all the time.  It's a huge flaw, and I've been trying to correct it for probably the last twenty years.  I do it a lot less than I once did, but I'm still not great at shutting up when I should.  This girl, however, couples blurting with a complete lack of awareness of her surroundings and the other people within them.

Here are some of the gems from the last couple of weeks of classes:

• To address another student's legitimate concerns about what to study:  "Drink a Red Bull!"  I'm pretty sure she lives on a diet of these, because all this annoying "bubbliness" (her word, not mine) has to come from a chemical place.  It cannot be naturally acquired.
• In reference to a piece written by a Chinese immigrant:  "Just because he's from quote-unquote CHINA..."  (I actually have no idea what she said after that, because I'm pretty sure my head exploded.)
• With regards to a discussion on whether or not symbols about windows would have a different meaning to someone who lived in a shantytown:  "Let's don't talk about shantytowns.  That depresses me."  I'm actually a little impressed she has any idea what a shantytown is.

My very favorite thing she has said occurred yesterday.  We were talking about a piece that all the young'uns seem to think is about the death of dreams, but I think is about retaining your own culture and your own sense of self, and she dropped this one:

"Well, everybody knows that as you get older, your soul dies."

Spike said that I should have said "Well, it's a good thing I created all those horcruxes, then."  Which would have been awesome.  Except that I never think of that shit right in the middle of the moment.  I'm dying inside, not because I'm old, but because I totally wish I had thought of that.

What I did say:  "It's good to know that my soul is dead.  That explains why it's cold in here."

She went on to say that the reason she says that is because her daddy told her that she should always say exactly what she thinks when she thinks it and keep her "bubbliness" because as you get older, your soul dies and you're not bubbly anymore.  The error in this, of course, is that your soul doesn't die - you just learn manners.  I think her daddy is doing her a huge disservice by encouraging her to believe she's a unique snowflake who doesn't need to learn manners, but I get great satisfaction from the idea that eventually she'll figure it out.

So far, she has not persuaded me from my opinion that people under the age of 25 should just shut up and listen.  In fact, this particular opinion is getting cemented in a beautiful gazebo in my mind, with a great stone monolith proclaiming this opinion as fact.  I'm even mentally landscaping it with beautiful flowers and stately ivy curling around the stone monolith.  It will forever be an awesome monument to life experience.