why are you being all smart?

Here is the experience: you are sitting in class. Your teacher starts talking. You are following along, understanding the material, expanding your knowledge, grasping the concepts. Then, out of the blue, your professor uses some obscure, fancy, academic word and you don't know what it means. Suddenly, you are sitting there dumb-founded, thinking about what in the whaaaaat is going on, forced to display a vacant look while you struggle, nodding your head (like YEAH) and feeling totally derailed from the discussion.

Has this happened to you?

I'mma tell you (one time)(...OK, no more tween pop references, I swear) - it has happened to me, my friends. On multiple occasions.

I'll be real honest with you right here. There are several words that are thrown around in the English-major world that I flat out just don't know what they mean. This is my own fault, because the first time I heard them, I just pretended like I knew. And then the second time, we had already used it so much that I didn't want to ask. And then the third time you hear a word you don't know, you just settle for never ever knowing it instead of embarrassing yourself and being THAT girl who is an idiot in public instead of just in her own head. (because even though "there is no such thing as a dumb question", there really is)
This process tends to happen a lot in one particular English class in which I have a lecturer who is too freaking smart for any body's good. Sitting through him lecturing literally makes me feel as though I am in a preschool class tyring to comprehend Einstein explain quantum physics instead of read me a nap-time story. It leaves me confused, angry, and want to hug my mom and/or eat some animal crackers.

Here are a few examples of words I literally didn't know until this past year. (after I looked them up on wikipedia) Please refrain from judging me.


colloquial - casual or sometimes local language common in everyday speech (the word sorta sounds more like some form of Japanese sushi though...)

dialectic - a form of reasoning, often centered around the tension of opposing things (in my head, this word sounds more like something that could be a part of the birthing process, so I was always afraid to know what it meant)

aestheticism - the standard of artistic beauty (not only is this word confusing, but it's impossible to say. Now my tongue feels stupid too)

novel: just kidding. of course I know what a belly-button is!

In closing, this blog post is a shout out to all teachers: stop being fancy and making me feel dumb. Don't you even try to act like you drive home only listening to NPR and then spend your evenings playing chess and memorizing encyclopedias. We all know that you are sitting on your couch with a package of double-stuffed oreos watching 16 & Pregnant just like the rest of us.