New World

I started the language component of my ENG101 course on the wrong footing by missing the first class. Woe unto me. AP now takes the class and he is everyone's nightmare. (Not really, but we'll talk about him at length some other time.) Today was the second class, and the discussion was on our assignment due at the end of the semester, before the exam. According to the hand-outs we were given; "Assignments should focus on the language used by a clearly definable social group or specific practice/activity, and include a 'field-work' component". Now, AP's idea of a good report must involve a group of people that are of immediate interest to us AND push us out of our comfort zones.

Our group started by listing interests and the list is something like this:

• Wild-life
• Writing
• Clubbing
• Drug/alcohol abuse
• Campus culture
• Internet
• Criminology
• Oriental dance

Tomorrow we meet to discuss what we're going to focus on and how we push ourselves out of our comfort-zones in that respect.

AP is dedicated to making new people of his students. It's endearing and in a way frustrating. He is trying, unlike most of our lecturers, to give us the real university experience; something different from what we were doing in school. He wants us to get 'out there' and learn something real, so we leave with a BA and a heap of experiences which drastically change who we are from who we were. He cares for us. All this is well, but his projects leave us stranded. The two most conservative kids in class were asked today to prepare a presentation for next Monday on the Khajuraho sculptures. One is a shy boy from a rural village in Ratnapura who as the lecturer points out seems "keen on remaining a virgin all his life" and the other is a Muslim girl who doesn't know what baduwa means. Both probably believe god dropped them in their mothers' arms at birth. The boy might actually enjoy preparing for his presentation, but the girl no doubt is going to be in a lot of trouble.

A nineteen year old girl wearing a hijab sits hunched in front of a computer with a stunned and scared expression on her face. Her mother enters the room. The girl is startled and attempts to close the window. The mother has already seen what she is looking at. Kama sutra diagrams.

Mother: [red in the face and shaking] Allah forgive us! What on earth are you looking at you terrible child!?

Girl: [almost in tears] Ma, it's for a University presentation. I have to prepare it for Monday.

Mother: [now angry] Do you think I'm a bloody fool!? Is THIS what they teach you at that University? You think I'm completely uneducated to think anyone at a University would ask you to learn about things like THIS!?!

Girl: Ma… it's the truth!

Mother: [slaps the girl] Don't you ever say things like that again. Shameless girl! How dare you! Wait til your father finds out about this! [grabbing her head] Oh… the shame! MY daughter! Allaaaah…! What have I done to deserve this!? Is this what you are doing saying you're at university!? Allah! What a shame you are! Oh…

Ok… I'm not exactly a playwright, just experimenting there, but you get the drift.

So this class is fun, and it's interesting, and it's getting us 'out there'. We will probably learn more here than we will in ALL the other classes we attend throughout our undergraduate career. But some of us will probably have serious injuries from it; either a failed grade or a social black-mark. I'm serious.