Now you listen

Two days ago, I turned in a 13 page seminar paper that basically argued how Freud wasn't a charlatan, but a genius. Despite the obvious problem with this argument (that it's a big lie) the paper contained a special significance: it was the last paper that I will ever turn in at the end of a seminar. 20 odd years ago, when I was a dumb kid, I struggled to write my first sentence. Now look at me, I can whip up a load of crap over the weekend. You want sentences? I've got them coming out my ass. What's even more special about this piece of coursework was that I turned it in for my last course ever, the capstone of my class-taking career, the end of my education, the final flippin' feather in my credit-earning cap. I've come so far--from Mrs. Freedman to Prof. Dharvadker, from Mr. A (I will never forget the dear letter people) to Mr. Modernity. The feeling of liberation that comes with this is quite big, big as a... schoolbus even. I've spent 20 years of my life in classes to finally reach a point where I never have to take one again. That's it. No more sitting in tiny uncomfortable chairs that grew ever smaller, as I grew ever bigger, and the classes ever longer. No more rolling my eyes at annoying classmates. And most importantly, what I find to be most emancipating about being done with classes, no more being lectured to. No more listening to people who know better. And I'm serious about this last one. I firmly believe that being done with classes permits me to plug up my ears and never listen again. The next Joe off the street who steps up to tell me a thing or two will promptly receive a "Listen buddy, you must be misinformed, I'm done taking classes. In fact, I'm a dissertator now so sit down and prepare to be dissertated to." Now that I think about it, us classless dissertators ("classless," of course, as in not taking classes, not as in being unfashionable, which in no way describes the almighty, all knowing, all well-dressing dissertator) should take our title more seriously. If we really lived up to our occupational descriptions, we'd be dissertatin' every chance we get. At parties, at home, at church, at weddings, at funerals, at our children's birthday parties. Really, being a dissertator is basically tantamount to having something to say that everyone else must listen to for their own damn good. It's a kind of noblesse oblige; it's having class without classes.