That Reminds Me. Junior Year Of High School, We Were Reading Le Petit Prince In French Class, And On

That reminds me. Junior year of high school, we were reading Le Petit Prince in French class, and on the day we were supposed to discuss the ending, my grandmother (who was very sick) had just decided to stop taking sustenance from a feeding tube--meaning she was going to die in a matter of days, and by her own choosing (albeit from a very limited set of crappy options). I was behind, so I speed-read the ending of Le Petit Prince during class. It did not go well. I got to That Part, and it surprised the hell out of me, and I burst into tears (while the teacher was talking about something completely different, too, b/c I was reading under my desk). 

So I ran outside into the hallway and sat down on the tiles to sob all by myself. Then my favorite English teacher came by. She knew me pretty well - a couple of other kids and I hung out in her classroom during lunches and talked about homoerotic interpretations of American lit (as you do) - and even though she was pretty no-nonsense, I thought she might offer some compassion. 

So, she was like “what’s going on?” and I choked out something like “we were reading The Little Prince...and...and...” 

She nodded sagely and said “it’s the literature.” Kind of like ‘ah yes, we’ve all been there.’ And just walked on by.

I mean, that was pretty bad-ass. I felt a little resentful that she didn’t stay to figure out what was really going on, but now I can appreciate that her reaction to seeing someone sitting in a corridor crying over a book was that this was a perfectly reasonable and ordinary occurrence & no other explanation needed. That’s a good English teacher right there. 

SO I FINISHED UNSPOKEN TODAY

SO I’m basically dead

the whole I love you  and link cutting part… i just could not.

I COULD NOT

I read it in the few minutes I have in the band hall before class. Here’s how it went:

Me: *is standing and reading Unspoken* *reads aforementioned part*

Me: *actually screams* 

Band Kids: *look at me like I’m the crazy one (keep in mind these are BAND KIDS)*

Me: *curls up into a ball, clutching book to chest, falls on side*

Callie: Heyyyyy…are you okay?

Me: *is actually sobbing curled up in a ball on ground* YES!

Callie: *stares*

Me: NO!

Callie: *drags me to my feet and wrenches book out of hands*

Me: *hisses and grabs book back* *is still crying* *keeps reading anyways*

and my band director… the looks he gave me… and my section leader… and everyone really…

I was in physical, mental, and emotional pain after that book. I mean that wholeheartedly. My chest physically hurt. And my mind felt like I was having Jared or Kami’s mind removed from it. And my emotions…

okay. yup.

@sarahreesbrennan :

this is how you make me feel

The fundamental objective of fanfic, especially when it is written by women, queer and genderqueer people, and people of color, is to insert yourself, aggressively and brazenly, into stories that are not about and were never intended to be about or represent you.

… “In this way, Miranda’s aggressive over-identification and use of a Federalist Founding Father to represent modern hip-hop and immigrant culture is precisely as subversive, and for many of the same reasons, as the woman-authored fic I read last week about a white male TV character who gets pregnant and gives birth to were-kittens.”

Hamilton is fanfic, and its historical critics are totally missing the point

(via bookshop)

I regret to inform you all that, as excellent an example of misguided teachers or unscientific Americans as this would be, it was unlikely to have been the OP's history teacher who sent in the Barbie doll, as Harvey Rowe, the author of this letter, writes that it is a spoof. http://emganin.tripod.com/home/id18.html

Can we please talk about how our history teacher sent a barbie to the smithsonian as proof of the presence of man two million years ago

I mean are you sure she's straight? Maybe she had a crush on your suitemate and doesn't know how to express it, or talk about being bi yet.

Petition for my roommate to stop jokingly calling herself a lesbian