Question Time

[gurdonark]

Three notes to self:

1. Time to re-read Great Expectations
2. Perhaps it is time to move to a camera with more than .1 megapixels
3. Time to expand my marketing skills.

Note to you:

Today it came to me that I read so many of you so very assiduously, and yet I feel that often I miss essential threads.
Sometimes I put one of you in NY, when years ago you moved to MA, or some such. Sometimes I read your elaborately-plotted lives and realize that I have questions to which you have answers if it were only polite to ask. I'm not really talking about
those matters of personal experience which only prurience would cause one to invade (not that I lack any degree of human flaw in any particular respect, but I like to think my flaws are measured and suitably boring). On the other hand, the exercise perhaps benefits from an element of unpredictability about the questions. I mean to ask those plot points which a courteous person would not ask for fear of seeming intrusive, out of place, out of reckoning, inattentive, or just darned incisive.

I rather like those odd UK parliaments with their Question Times. I propose to you something to which you may agree by entering a comment. I propose that you grant me amnesty to ask you a question or questions about your life that I would ordinarily feel too shy to ask directly. The "amnesty" means that I know, before I ask, that asking anyone a question about a novel rather lacks decorum. I also know that many of my questions could be solved by assiduous reading.

You are not bound to answer, and you are free, if you do answer, to answer obliquely. You'll see as readily as I do that
it will be more fun for you if you can be more revelatory, in a very public setting, but I don't want you to tell me something
you'd regret sharing. I am not encouraging you to tell me secrets, as secrets have this beautiful banality about them that
I do not always require of life.

Would you like to grant me amnesty to ask you a question or questions? If so, just type in the comments--I grant you amnesty.

Comments

education quality

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

Just keep telling yourself "It's not the degree, it's how you use it!" (and no, it's no longer necessary to call Smith graduates ma'm. Your ladyship will do fine though.)

Re: education quality

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I'm always amused, a bit, about Smith, because of a woman I met in Kansas City who was the mother of someone with whom my wife attended high school. No member of civilized society ever wore a college degree as a medal of honor as much as that kind and likeable woman. She would manage to roll out "when I attended Smith" with a kind of regalness I found breathtakingly amusing and charming.

It reminds me of the time I represented my alma mater, the Uinversity of Arkansas, at the Beverly Hills High School
college fair day. Often our Los Angeles County similar events drew tons of kids to our table, as the U of Arkansas has a nationally successful cross-country team,which appealed to the alternative-sports-minded kids. But in Beverly Hills, one could see the upper lips of mothers curl in derision as they walked by our table.

My favorite woman, though, actually was a recruiter. Like me, she was a lawyer at a downtown LA law firm. Unlike me, she went to Hamilton, which aspired, as you may know, to be a kind of Smith. She told the other Arkansas fellow and I what a rewarding time she had personally interviewing the west coast applicants, to see if they're a fit, and the elaborate admissions process at Hamilton.

I put on my best Ozarks Arkansas accent, which is actually close to but distinct from my south Arkansas native accent, and said "We have an admissions process, too--we ask them "ere ye breathin'?" and if the answer is yes, we admit them. The poor soul from Hamilton did not see the fun in my gentle fun at her expense, but it was fun nonetheless.

Smith is a great school, though--what a tradition.

"Are you breathing?"

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

That is amusing! (and I do see the humor).

Re: education quality

[tuluum.livejournal.com]

hee :) i do admissions recruiting work here too :) smith is not known in trinidad so people give me a similar initial reaction... like i went to miss tilly's vocational college for remedial basket weaving or something :) it just amuses me :)

Re: education quality

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Well, it is true, I suppose, that if a school is to be any good it must have a name like DeVry :)