First day back

It has been a while since I've done this school stuff. The first day of classes are always interesting because it is hard to include a lesson plan in with all of the introductions and the syllabus. Of course I've had some teachers that simply forgo the syllabus and jump right into the lectures. Those are always interesting classes. It is true that the syllabus is fairly similar for all of the classes that I have taken, but it can be a little weird when we just jump into things. I'm trying to remember what classes I have taken where that was the case, but I can't really recall any particular classes run this way (perhaps I did this at another institution and I just can't think that far back).
One reason I have heard of professors skipping doing the syllabus is that they claim that I am paying for the class time, so they should use it well. The thing is though is that I am not paying for the class time. It is an argument I hear all the time from students who are real nuts about not missing class. They go on and on about how each class hour is worth a certain amount of money and so on and so forth. But the truth is most students are paying for the classes, they aren't even really paying for the education. They are paying for a name brand degree. Sure, the education that comes along with it is nice, but I seriously doubt that many people would go through the “college experience” if they didn't get the degree at the end. I agree that class time is important and I don't like skipping classes, and yes I am paying to be in those classes, but in the end I am giving away all those little dollars so that when I graduate they will give me a piece of paper that says I can go out and get a good job (or that I can pay more money to say that I can get another piece of paper that will say I can get an even better job).
I'm sure that this sounds like a fairly negative rant (which I didn't intend to get into) but that is the way it goes for me. It also brings me to my most recent poem, Paying for Poetry. This poem did not go the way I expected it to. I actually like it a lot, although it definitely needs some more work. It uses one of my favorite words in it, “dweeb”. I mean even the way it is spelled is wonderful. Not many words start with “dw”. I can't think of any others, but that is because I am not looking nor am I thinking very hard.

Paying for Poetry

Five dollars at a book store
buys a lot of poetry.
A used bookstore of course,
you can't buy nothing nowadays
without breaking anything less than a twenty.
Books are no exception.
But poetry,
that sits outside
with all those other books no one wants.
Books about looking for Santa Clause,
and how to cook naked.
Eventually those books find a home,
even the poetry
whose lyrics are lost upon those
who it is suppose to inspire.
Too boring,
doesn't make enough sense,
and it is for dweebs.

But us dweebs,
we love our poetry.
We take our five dollars to
the bookstore and
we scour the titles for something
that we need to have.
Something that we need to hold
under some dim light and read
until our eye can no longer focus
and we are forced to look away.
But not for long,
we force ourselves to go on just a little longer
just long enough so that we know
that we ripped off that bookstore
because we bought poetry.

Copyright 2008 William Curb