Last Thursday night I was in class and we were on break. I was looking through my email. (Which, can I say?, I currently haven't gone through my email in two days and I have something like 63 messages. I need to stay on top of that stuff.) So, I was going through my mail and I had like two or three new messages at that point. One of them was for the new Madame DeFarge knits book. I made a comment to Jesse who was two seats down about it, knowing he would appreciate the humor.
He chuckled appropriately, which made the girl between us say, "Who is Madame DeFarge?"
This is when a number of events happened all at once. 1. The room got quiet. 2. The three professors who happened to be in the front of the room were close enough to hear me. 3. I didn't speak softly because the room was loud when I started my sentence.
I replied to the girl, "Madame Defarge is a character in The Sale of Two Titties." I was going to state the author, but the room was silent as I practically yelled, "Sale of Two Titties." My hands flew to my cheeks and I could feel my cheeks burning from within and they were warm to the touch. I also felt the flush go up into my ears, not something I feel very often at all. All three professors were laughing and two were rather red-faced themselves.
A short time later, break ended. One of the professors stood up and stated that they were going to start teaching and that one of the other professors was going to be observing that professor's instruction style. The observing professor was not going to be a paying attention to what we, as students, were saying. Only the observing professor, from her seat outside the circle, stated, "Except for Kim. I'm going to write down everything she says, like when she was standing on her desk...." I don't know why I took umbrage to her saying that I said it while I was standing on the desk. That would have been brash and completely inappropriate. I was standing on my chair to get in and out to go to the bathroom at the beginning of break because there was no room to get out otherwise. I just happened to be getting into my seat, by standing on it, when the observing professor walked in.
So, I looked across the circle and argued, "I wasn't standing on my desk when I said, 'Sale of Two Titties by Darles Chickens;' I was seated for that. I was standing on my desk at some other point when you walked in."
Only that's not the best part of this story -- making a number of professors laugh at once and embarrassing myself in the process. Nope. Not by a long shot. The coolest part of this story comes in on Monday, four days after this event happened. I had a seminar in Philadelphia yesterday (being the Monday in question) and left my phone to sleep in on my bed all day (oops). So, when I got home, I checked my messages. One of the students who was a sophomore when I taught her in my last creative writing class at NEHS had texted me. She, now being a senior and probably in her English AP class first thing in the morning, texted me during that time and said, "J**** (another sophomore then, now senior, from that same creative writing class) just said, sail of two titties and I'm concerned."
You can't ask for a bigger tribute. My former students have proven they remember my favorite words: callipygious and borborygmus. Now, here is J**** having C**** text me asking about the Sale of Two Titties and only four days after I completely embarrassed myself with my inability to pronounce that Darles Chickens book correctly.
He chuckled appropriately, which made the girl between us say, "Who is Madame DeFarge?"
This is when a number of events happened all at once. 1. The room got quiet. 2. The three professors who happened to be in the front of the room were close enough to hear me. 3. I didn't speak softly because the room was loud when I started my sentence.
I replied to the girl, "Madame Defarge is a character in The Sale of Two Titties." I was going to state the author, but the room was silent as I practically yelled, "Sale of Two Titties." My hands flew to my cheeks and I could feel my cheeks burning from within and they were warm to the touch. I also felt the flush go up into my ears, not something I feel very often at all. All three professors were laughing and two were rather red-faced themselves.
A short time later, break ended. One of the professors stood up and stated that they were going to start teaching and that one of the other professors was going to be observing that professor's instruction style. The observing professor was not going to be a paying attention to what we, as students, were saying. Only the observing professor, from her seat outside the circle, stated, "Except for Kim. I'm going to write down everything she says, like when she was standing on her desk...." I don't know why I took umbrage to her saying that I said it while I was standing on the desk. That would have been brash and completely inappropriate. I was standing on my chair to get in and out to go to the bathroom at the beginning of break because there was no room to get out otherwise. I just happened to be getting into my seat, by standing on it, when the observing professor walked in.
So, I looked across the circle and argued, "I wasn't standing on my desk when I said, 'Sale of Two Titties by Darles Chickens;' I was seated for that. I was standing on my desk at some other point when you walked in."
Only that's not the best part of this story -- making a number of professors laugh at once and embarrassing myself in the process. Nope. Not by a long shot. The coolest part of this story comes in on Monday, four days after this event happened. I had a seminar in Philadelphia yesterday (being the Monday in question) and left my phone to sleep in on my bed all day (oops). So, when I got home, I checked my messages. One of the students who was a sophomore when I taught her in my last creative writing class at NEHS had texted me. She, now being a senior and probably in her English AP class first thing in the morning, texted me during that time and said, "J**** (another sophomore then, now senior, from that same creative writing class) just said, sail of two titties and I'm concerned."
You can't ask for a bigger tribute. My former students have proven they remember my favorite words: callipygious and borborygmus. Now, here is J**** having C**** text me asking about the Sale of Two Titties and only four days after I completely embarrassed myself with my inability to pronounce that Darles Chickens book correctly.