What I Learned In College... Jews, Beer, and Midieval Lit

You know what upsets me about my college education??? What upsets me is I can’t for the life of me think of one thing I learned in college that helps me do my job every day. I’ve already talked about how I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up (except for Anthony Bourdain’s stylist and you never see that on Craigslist) and I didn’t know in college either. So instead of learning how to run a business or how to build a skyscraper or how to clone something, I learned… well what’s the complete opposite of those productive things???

Things I learned in college…

A Whole Lot About Jews. You see my minor was history and you have to take a variety of history classes from around the world. Religion and religious people in general fascinate me and for some reason I just always ended up in “Jew class” every semester. I took History of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Ancient Jew Rules Class), Living in the Time of Jesus (Jew Life 101), and How American’s View the Holocaust (How to Deal With Your American Jew Guilt). Now there is a Jewish Studies major at the university that I went to and, as you can probably imagine, there are only so many Jew classes. Therefore I had a lot of the same kids in my Jew classes because the majority of them were Jewish Studies majors. They were like… really Jewish… and kinda rude. I mean these are small classes and you’ve seen the same people in them for the past year and a half, wouldn’t you want to say hi or something??? Not these Jews. My close Jew Friend, who just to confuse you really isn’t Jewish and wasn’t in any of my Jew classes, told me to walk up to them and say Shalom because he thought I could pass for being Israeli. So I walked right up the leader of the group, in his longhorn yamaka, and said Shalom just like Jew Friend (who really isn’t Jewish) told me. I then got the Jew stare… and crickets… But seriously, if you need to know about the ancient Jewish Sects, how to make Jew breed in the desert, or how to compose a symphony or write a comic book about how your family didn’t survive genocide but you did and now you feel guilty… I’m here for you. (I hope the last part of that sentence doesn’t sound like I’m trying to make a joke because A: The Holocaust… not so funny and B: That class was probably the best class I took all five and a half years I was in school. It was extremely interesting and someday I’ll tell you all about it and let you borrow some good books if you too are interested.)

How to Appreciate Beer for Breakfast: I was not exactly a novice of beer drinking when I entered college. I defiantly wasn’t an alcoholic in high school, but I had my share of hung over Sunday breakfasts with the family. I spend two years of high school in Germany where I learned how to drink... legally! But it wasn’t until freshmen year of college until I learned the how Beer for Breakfast might be as awesome as ponies are when you’re eight. Ex Roommate/Ex Best Friend/Now I’m Married to a Complete Raging Lunatic with Teeth Like a Shark used to come into my room in the morning, wake me up by shaking me violently, and hand me a beer. He would have one as well and we would shotgun them together on top of my bed. Loser had to drive to school. I’ll be honest I was never very good and lost the majority of the time, but I swear it was so much easier getting out of bed for Spanish class with a warm Miller Light in my stomach.

Leading Class Discussions in Classes I Know Nothing About: During my second to last semester I took a history class called Medieval Literature. It was on Wednesdays from 3-6. For three hours I sat in a small room in the history building (you remember the one that housed the American Studies department in the attic) and tried to be interested in the book we had to read that week. Yeah, that week… We had to read a new book every week… A new “medieval” book, every week. It kinda crushed my soul. Every Wednesday we came into class and someone in the class would lead the discussion of that week’s book. I was extremely nervous to do this for a few reasons.

Reason #1: Miles. Miles was this nerdy, short history major who on the first day of class before the professor even entered the room stood up and asked everyone what their major was because, “This is a 400 level class and only for history majors because other majors won’t be able to keep up.” Um Bullshit little nerdy dude. The class was also an upper level English class and many majors, including American Studies, requires you to take upper level history classes. He scared one of the only other girls away! Seriously, how bright could she have been, but she got up and left before the professor had even entered the room. Then, that first day our professor passed a paper around with all the books we were going to read and we had to sign our name next to the one we wanted to lead the class discussion for. I picked the only book written by a woman, The Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe. After class I was sitting on a bench in front of the building looking for something in my backpack when Miles sat down next to me and decided to let me know why the book I picked sucked and how hard it will be for me to lead a group of male history majors in an intelligent conversation about a stupid woman for three hours. I knew then he was a little twerp, but he still got to me and made me nervous because as good of a bullshitter that I am… three hours is a long time.

Reason #2: I knew (well still know) nothing about medieval history besides things I’ve learned from Robin Hood, and I don’t think a “how Margery Kempe and Robin Hood were alike” lecture would fly. Seriously I didn’t take a single European history class the entire time I was in school except for Early Christianity (When Jews Rebel) and only then did we sometimes talk about Rome.

Reason #3: I don’t like to look stupid and I was 99.9% sure I was going to make an ass out of myself by talking about the wrong Pope or King or something.

I lucked out one way, though. The book I picked was one of the very last books we were going to discuse meaning I got to see how other people lead the class first. I saw what worked and want didn’t. (Oh, and Mile’s discussion was horrible. Hehe…) When It came my week to bravely step to the front of the room I was totally prepared. I had almost finished skimming the book, but I had read every review and critique I could find online. I had a nice list of open ended questions to talk about and quotations I knew I understood (thanks to Sparknotes) to discuss. What made my lecture the best of the class, seriously at the end of the semester I was called out by our professor for being the best guest lecturer, was that the semester before I had taken an Early Feminist Literature class. Sure, all those boys could talk medieval royalty and monks for days, but none of them knew women writers from the 40’s and 50’s. None of them could answer how Margery Kempe was like Phyllis Wheatley. It was awesome to ask questions that Miles didn’t know the answer to, or questions he couldn’t BS his way out of, and then get recognized by a “400 level history class” professor for doing better than the little history geek in the corner. I’m awesome.