Monday, February 1, 2010

On Being Uneducated

Not uneducated exactly. I graduated high school and did well enough when I felt like it. I graduated college, but I have a degree in, mystifyingly, Business management.

In high school when I would slam out my english papers the week before they were due, creating a first draft, an outline, notes and a final draft all in one fell swoop, turning everything in at once to get partial points for the stuff that had been due in the preceeding weeks. And getting A's and B's. In college those silly outlines and notes that I never actually needed were left behind and I threw words onto my computer screen and turned them in without even much bothering to proofread. Now granted, I went to online college but that is the ONLY reason I gave them so little thought. Because I COULD and still get a good grade. If they would have required more, I would have given them more, but just because I didnt tell you I learned something doesn't mean I didn't learn it.

But the rest of english, back in the high school days - grammar and the rules of writing completely mystified me. I don't know what it means to split an infinitive, I have to think for a moment to come up with what a Pronoun is and once I do I can't explain it to you. I can't define it. The only thing I know about Adjectives is that it is a word that I both like to say and spell. The rules of writing escape me, and I have no patience to learn them. But I can look at a sentence and know it's wrong. And I can fix it.

I have read enough, so much, that I just know the right from the wrong.

I have no training in writing stories, only a vauge memory of a line chart drawn on some chalboard or another. A rise and a fall, the first big climax, and the jagged secondary climax on the way down the ending side. I keep that in mind when I'm frantically filling my 3 Subject notebooks up, but I also know that it is not the only format available.

just like haiku's are not the only kind of poetry.

No comments:

Post a Comment