The Way They're Learning Me

I haven't posted in ages...and I can make a lot of excuses about that, but mostly I just haven't found anything I've felt compelled to write about.  I briefly considered an entry about toilet brushes after I found a sign on the toilet stall door at school that read, "Please use me.  I feel bored and lonely. Thanks, The Toilet Brush"  This briefly led me to think on the cultural difference between a place where the toilet brush is conveniently located next to the toilet for all toilet users to use and a place where the toilet brush is reserved for cleaning staff.  It also seemed an interesting nod toward sanitation given that in bars here "washing" a glass consists of the bar tender dipping it in some water for about 5 seconds.  But, ultimately, this topic didn't bear enough weight for me to think much beyond that.

To be honest, there still isn't much I feel like writing about.  Sure, I have a laundry list of petty complaints I could make about my life here.  I could write about my incredulity at actually being yelled at by a store manager for asking a question of an employee.  I could write about my crappy bike and my extreme aversion to it.  I could also write about how cold it is, and how I'm about 90% sure that the radiator in my room doesn't work at all.  But this is all just garden variety FML-type fodder.  It's not the sort of witty banter I hoped this blog would consist of.

So...what can I say?  I still don't know what to write to you about.  People here really do talk about "learning" you....as in "I'm going to learn you about governance."  It always amuses me, but more and more it seems like a fundamental issue in my life.  Where students\faculty do not understand English well enough to know that it is simply impossible to learn me, is there really much room for them to teach me anything in an academic sense?  I still hope that the answer may be yes...but my experience thus far has been an emphatic no.  I find myself in a place where the tutor who leads the class often wildly misunderstands the book and then spreads her misinformation around confusing students who were not previously confident in their own understanding.  For the first time, I feel spoiled by LSMSA and Hendrix.  I miss having professors whose thoughts I trusted and having peers with whom I could have stimulating, nuanced conversations about the topics of the course.  But this is only the first course, and perhaps I am judging prematurely.  Perhaps there is in fact much that these people have to learn me...much that I have to learn.