Why this blog. American Studies... What???

Why.
Why this blog…

Four years ago I had a professor who sat me down and told me she was going to give me a D on a paper I wrote for her class. I almost started crying. Not because I was getting a D, because I had received at least one failing grade before (okay maybe more than one but chemistry is hard.), but because I actually worked hard writing this paper. Now I know you’re about to start judging because I can’t actually remember the famous, African American woman I wrote this paper about.. but seriously it was an amazing piece of charisma and pizazz. She was this eccentric, alcoholic who would paint her face white to ride on trains, and only write in the nude. The paper was supposed to be 10 pages, give biographical information about the person, and discuses their work.

Now I think you, the reader, need to understand that I was an American Studies major. Yeah, run that thought through your head. American Studies. It is pretty much the most ridiculous major known only to the gays. American studies was a major some idiot made up apparently after he pissed off the women, the Blacks, the Asians, the Hispanics, and sociology department. It’s the History department’s slightly retarded little brother. The best way to describe what American Studies is, is to ask you to think about to high school history. After you spent two weeks learning about WWII, at the end of the chapter in your textbook there would be a little box. That box would go something like this…

“Did you know that women were alive during WWII as well? Did you know that because all the men were fighting for our freedom in many glamorous locations all over the world, women had to work? Crazy I know!!! All over the country these petite little dewdrops of femininity put down the wash and picked up screw drivers. And guess what happened??? They liked to work!!! Again, crazy I know. These Rosie the Riveters’ did everything their husbands, fathers, and brother used to do. (But don’t worry it was for less pay.) And did you know that African Americans fought for your freedom, even while at home their wives weren’t allowed to work with all those white women at the airplane factory? And guess what we did to our Asian friends? Mandatory Vaca!!!!”

Those boxes turned into American Studies. Now you might ask, “But wise Lemon Lady, why did this major called American Studies need to exist if universities already had an African American Studies program? A Gender Studies program? An Asian Studies Program? A Religious Studies Major? A History Department? And a Sociology Department.” My only answer is because of the gays. Sometime in the 1980s someone, I’m assuming gay but maybe not, decided the gays needed a major, too. Apart from one class offered to Gender Studies majors. There were no queer classes. Thus, American Studies was born! Part women, part minorities, part sociology, part Jesus loving, part gay. Bam!!! New major. Now where can we put the offices of these poor shmucks? A new nice building on Dean Keaton? No. A classic structure on the six pack? No. Then where? Then someone had a momentary flash of brilliance…

“You know that amazing, original to the university, gorgeous brick building where we house the History Department.”
“Yes, I am aware of the awesomeness of that architectural delight.”
“Let us put part women, part minorities, part sociology, part Jesus loving, part gay Department in… THE ATTIC!”
“That is a fantastic idea. This way none of the advisers or professors will be able to stand up in their offices because of the slant of the roof. Oh and that’s a horrible name, we’ll have to change it.”

The point I’m trying to make is not that my degree is dumb. Any education is good education. And any degree from the school I attended is a good degree, but if you put my degree next to a BS in Engineering it’s no surprise which one gets more job calls and prestige. With an engineering degree you actually learned how to do something. Make something. Solve something. Me, not so much. I learned how homosexuals in the 1960’s fought back at Stonewall. I learned how racial lines were blurred in the 1940s in rural Tennessee because of water disputes. I learned how Americans think through problems like how to build National Parks and the Holocaust. I learned about doing things instead of actually doing them. One sentence to sum it up… My classes were weird.

Anyway… Back to this horrible paper I wrote. I thought it was amazing. I mixed all the biographical information about this crazy poet into a beautiful mixture of quotes from her poetry, and fiction I created to put myself in her shoes to fully understand her work and bring it into the modern day. She was a rebel in so few words, so I thought I would go rebel and not write the boring research paper I knew everyone would be drafting the night before. I thought my professor, who I had had previously for How Americans View and Understands Property, would applaud my creativity and my out of the box thinking to a research paper. This professor had given me an A for my final paper in the property class that was about airplane seat hierarchy narrated from the view of four different airplane seats on the same international flight. She praised personifying damn airplane seats for crying out loud!!!
I got a D. She told me although I’m funny and kinda witty, and she enjoyed reading my paper I didn’t follow the syllabus therefore I got a D. Then this was said,

“Lemon Lady, do you like to write?”
“Yeah…”
“Did you let anyone read this paper before you handed it to me?”
“Um, the proof reader from the English department.”
“And what did he say?”
“He says I spell at a third grade level, have poor sentence structure, and form paragraphs like I’m talking to my best friend.”
“You should start a blog.”


Four years later.
You’re welcome Ms. Thompson.