Rugged Sarcasm.

Billy Madison has been singing through my cerebrum, “back to school, back to school, to prove to Dad that I’m not a fool...” Although it’s been a rude awakening (remembering how to take notes, to prepare for class, to engage in the readings), it has been nice returning to the world of the worthwhile. You must no longer envy my status as an aimless city wanderer, a beach frolicker, an out-to-eater, a pub-crawler. I am now an officially enrolled student at the University of Melbourne, the second oldest, very esteemed, university in Australia, and I’m back to contributing, in my own small way, to academia. Nonetheless, I bet Scuba Steve and Mother Mary are glad that I’m finally doing something legitimate with my time, rather than maintaining my status as a social glutton.

My first days of ‘uni’ have proved successful, if successful means effectively finding each of my lecture halls on time and following, for the most part, the entirety of the content despite the amplified Australian accents that professors gain through microphone usage. It’s been quite unique walking into lecture halls; hailing from a small, private, liberal arts university, I am unaccustomed to not recognizing each face and, hence, connecting each face with a name, a sport, a sorority, a judgment, a memory, some sense of familiarity.

The equally new phenomena of T.A.’s and tutorials bring me to explain the reason for which I’ve entitled this blog post “Rugged Sarcasm.” Please be forewarned that I’m saying this purely out of curiosity-I could not help but raise a challenge flag at what happened in my Australia Now tutorial this morning. Much to Maddie’s chagrin, I was genuinely flabbergasted (not disgusted, not being an elitist, simply taken aback, quite aback) when our T.A., a supposed Ph.D. candidate, could spell neither ‘rugged’ nor ‘sarcasm’ without the assistance of the class. So yes, I may have rolled my eyes, and yes, I may have scoffed a tiny bit, especially after the second offense occurred, but is it all that wrong to question someone’s authority and responsibility to teach you when they cannot spell two words that the general majority would consider easy, especially at the level of higher education? I’ve never had a T.A. before, so perhaps that is why I find such fault with what could have been a simple “brain fart” disrupting her Tuesday morning (thus disrupting MY Tuesday morning). Spelling curiosity aside, I am nonetheless looking forward to the fruits of Classical Mythology, Australia Now, Decadent Literature, and Genre and Popular Fiction. Be prepared to hear my upcoming literary suggestions, as my book list ranges from James’ The Spoils of Poynton, Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, and Huysmans’ Against Nature to (no authors necessary, you’ll see why) The Hobbit, The Silence of the Lambs, and The War of the Worlds. Happy reading and happy (correct) spelling!