So, the other guy, and girl, that brought so much amusement to my life were Crystal C. and Rod B. Unfortunately, with Crystal, she didn't come around quite as much as Rod, so I don't have as much to say, because we (being the ladies of the WC) didn't compile a list of all the greatest Crystal moments. On Rod however, we had a disturbing plethora of material, which I don't think I'll ever forget as long as I live.

As I mentioned, I previously worked as an English Writing tutor and met many different people from all walks of life and languages.

Rod was, I think, Hawaiian (for the record, his language issues had nothing to do wit him being hawaiian), whatever else he may have been, an ex-gangster/surfer/druggie with plenty of scarring and missing brain cells, and at the present time of meeting, moved up to my area from Hawaiian for his safety because someone back home was trying to stab him to death.

That's how he ended up in my writing center. He had come to my area, to try to be a "normal" person, which required getting an education.

And I must say, for as annoying as he was, I rather liked the guy. He wasn't cocky or unresponsive like one might expect, and he was rather pleasant, if not amusing to work with. (In fact, we all took turns tutoring him, partly for our individual sanity and partly for amusement.. stupid people really do suck other people braincells out). I even happened to be the first person to work with him, and it just got weirder from there.

These are some of the more memorable excerpts from our tutoring session:

On Nouns -

Tutor: "What is a noun?"

Rod: "Something that helps the sentence."

On arguing on behalf of Paul Goodman -

Rod (reading): "In responding to Paul Goodman opinion on behalf of his essay A Proposal to Abolish Grading . . . "

Tutor: "Your essay is arguing on behalf of his essay?"

Rod: "Yes."

Tutor: "So you agree with him?"

Rod: "No."

[from an English 102 paper]: “Other student believed that it would give them a better understanding if professor let students know ahead of time what to study on the final. Some students believe it will give them self-confidence during testes.”

(and I kid you not, that is word for word, grammer and all)

On the possiblity of other universes -

Tutor: "You have 'worlds' there. Is that what you mean?"

Rod: "No! How many worlds are there? Can you be on more than one world? Is there more than one world?"

Tutor: "I think there might be . . ."

[Rod laughs and nods]

[Tutor thinking: "... and that's exactly where you came from, another world]

On tone -

Tutor: "What is tone?"

Rod: "Tone is tone."

Me: "No good. Try again."

Rod: "Man! Tone is . . . like tone of voice tone. Let me look it up. [Looks it up in dictionary] That doesn’t help me!"

Me: "Well, yes, actually it does, but . . ."

Rod: "So what is tone?"

Me: "Tone is like . . . Wait, why am I telling you what tone is? Why did you put tone in your paper if you don’t know what it is? What does tone have to do with your argument?"

Rod: "Nothing."

Me (beginning to laugh): "Then why would you put it in your paper?"

Rod: "Because I wanted to make my paper longer."

Tutor: "How long does it have to be?"

Rod: "Like three pages."

(and people, just so you know.. that is three pages... double spaced)

On main ideas -

Me (after Rod finishes reading his paper): "Okay.. So what's your main idea?"

Rod: "The main idea would be . . . that he died in the end? Is that the main idea?"

On the difference between a paper and a movie he is writing about -

Me (about the Scarface paper): "What was the meaning of the movie? The point of the movie?"

Rod: "That’s what I was going to do in the conclusion."

Me: [Explains difference between a review paper and summarizing the movie]

Rod: "What? Can you explain that again? I don't get it."

On what makes a good movie -

Rod: "Scarface was very psychotic."

Me: "How does that make it a good movie?"

Rod: "Because the good guy always dies in the end?"

Me: [Trying my hardest to laugh at this completely bizarre sense of reasoning]

(He was suppose to be writing a paper on the movie Scarface, different aspects that made it a good [or bad] movie and what the idea of the movie is... Instead he just wrote down what he remembered from the movie which he didn't even finish watching it turned out because he had been drinking and fell asleep half way through)

Tutor: "You have to back up these statments with facts."

Rod: "I’ll just make some facts up on my own."

On grammar -

Rod: "Can I say fully attention or full attention?"

On how to piss off your audience -

[From an English 102 paper]: “In addition to the tone of the author in this essay, he keeps argumentative that give audiences can be aggressive towards his usage of an example from his own opinion.”

On Spelling, difficulties with -

Rod (after writing down the word): "How do you spell ‘can’t?’

Tutor: "...You just spelled it."

Rod (speaking outloud with great labor): "C . . . A . . . N . . . T . . . "

On making points to write about, the desperation in seeking them -

[Conclusion to an English 102 paper]: “In closing this argument I on behalf seek some power point that I can include to the argument, make more out of it instead of seeking the claim that I can refute but wouldn’t be debatable for my audiences to read without strength.”

On thinking -

Rod: "It’s hard to think. It hurts. . . . What was the question?"

(... Yes folks, he really did say that)

Side note, from tutors, "National Rod Day" -

Tutor #1: "September 30th is “National Ask a Stupid Question Day.”

Tutor #2: "Do you think we should try to schedule him for that day?"

Tutor: "'He was all by himself.' What was that an example of?"

Rod: "Responsibility."

On examples of luxury -

Tutor: "What is an example of a luxury?"

Rod: "A china cabinet."

Tutor: "How is that a luxury?"

Rod: "Because it’s stupid."

On technology, the limitations of -

Rod: "This computer is broken."

Me (trying not to laugh): "No, Rod, it’s not turned on."

Rod: "It’s broke. This computer has no brainl. They can’t even talk."

Me: "Some can."

Rod: "What?!"

(side note: usually, whoever came in first turned on all the WC computers first thing since they can sometimes take a while to load up)

On price aauging -

Rod: "How much does a [blank cassette] tape cost? Fifteen dollars?"

On colleges, existential arguments about -

[From and English 102 paper]: "I don’t think there’s such thing as colleges because every student won’t have enough money to pay for classes"

On complimentary Hershey’s Kisses -

Rod: "What happened to all your candy?"

Tutor: "You ate it."

Rod: "I didn’t like it anyway."

(sometimes we kept a basket of candy at the front desk as some places of business or others sometimes do.. and being the he was a frequent customer, he ate quite a bit)

Hershey’s Kisses, Part II, another day -

Rod: "Where is the candy? Why you guys don’t have candy no more?"

Tutor: "Rod, we had candy one time and now we don’t any more. Sorry."

Rod (Looks in a pail sitting on the desk): "Why you don’t have candy anymore!"

Tutor: "I don’t know, Rod. It was just those Hershey’s Kisses. Someone brought them in, and you ate all of it, so now there’s no candy. Sit down."

Rod: "You guys need to get more candy."

Tutor: "Right. Sit down, Rod."

Rod (sarcastically): "Yes, ma’am!"

On nutrition -

Me: "Could food be a luxury? I mean, could like, McDonalds be a luxury?"

Rod: "Hell, no! I eat at McDonalds all the time. It’s good food. It’s good for you."

(He drove me up a wall with that paper... There was so much potential in that assignment... and only so very little I could get him to understand. I ended up writing the exact same assignment. If anyone wants to read it, ask. I only with I still had a copy of his for comparison. It would put stitches in your side)

On stoners -

Rod: "I smoked pot since I was 12 years old in Hawaii, and it never hurt me.

On making an ass out of yourself -

[From and English 102 paper]: "Many students are able to make up their grades by doing extra credit when they know their behind..."

On writing a conclusion, great ideas -

[Conclusion to a paper about nearly killing himself and his friend in an automobile accident]: "It really sucks to wreck your car."

Rod: "It creates bad spirit."

Tutor: "What do you mean by that?"

Rod: "Like a black cat walking across your path!"

Tutor: "Okay. . ."

Rod: "Is that right?"

Tutor: "If that’s what you meant, then that’s . . . what you meant."

On thesis, great ideas -

[Thesis for a compare/contrast essay for ENG 101]: "The library bathroom is better than the humanities bathroom, but we need both."

On over editing -

Rod: "This part should come out."

Tutor: "No, for goodness sake Rod! Don’t cross that part out—it makes sense!"

Rod (stunned look): "It does?"

Tutor: "Yes, I actually know what you mean there!"

Rod: "You DO?!"

On why the government should not regulate pot -

Rod: "Little kids getting stoned! That would be cool. I mean, if they could do it."

Tutor #1: "God, I hope you never have children!"

Tutor #2: "He won’t have them for long if the State has anything to say about it."

(Sometimes, if we had nothing better to do, more than one of us would tutor him at a time)

On Excuses, famous and over-used -

(The very first time Rod came in, he was sent by his professor. The professor hadn't sent a note, and Rod didn't know why he was there, so I started with what Rod had... which happened to be an article. It was what I call a high level article, although not too snooty, but still quite peppered with some unnecessary highlevel academic language, and no assignment sheet, since Rod had failed to write that part down. I figured he probably had to write something about the article, so I assumed that understanding the content of the article would be a good place to start)

Me: "Okay, so have you read the article yet?"

Rod: "..No.."

Me: [thinking.. "Well, there goes my last attempt at helping him. I've already spent ten minutes trying to determine what he needs assistence with, and that was a last resort"] "Okay, then I guess we'll start with reading the article, and we can stop as we go along to discuss different parts"

Rod reads, not very fast, but just fine, and we go through as much as we can in 50 minutes, which is the length of time for one appointment.

Me (wrapping things up): "Okay, well, now what you should do is read the rest, and we can make an appointment to discuss the rest once you've finished reading the article."

Rod: "I can't read."

Me (incredulous.. since is the first time I've met him): "Yes... you can. You just sat there and read me a while two pages."

Rod: "No! Really.. I can't read."

Me: "Uh huh.. Just read the rest by the time you come in again"

That was to be the excuse he used time and again when he didn't want to do his work. As well as a few others

"I can’t read. Can you read it for me?"

"I can’t write. Can you write it for me?"

"I can’t spell."

On Rhetorical Questions -

Rod: "Fuck it! What’s wrong with me?"

On the Writing Center, what our job is:

Rod: "If you just help me come up with a thesis I can write my paper. Give me a thesis statement."

On signing in -

Tutor: "I need your student number. I should probably know it by now."

Rod: "Why would you know my student number?"

Tutor: "...We have a very special relationship with you, Rod."

Rod: "Like how?"

Tutor: "Well, it’s kind of ambiguous . . ."

Rod: "What’s that supposed to mean?"

Tutor: "Sometimes we don’t know just what to do with you, or what we’re doing with you . . ."

Rod: "Man! I finally had a breakthrough! That made my head hurted!"

(yes, that was word for word)

On scheduling frequency -

Rod: "Man! I’m going to be in here like every day!"

Me: [in head] "Oh, gosh, no!" [out loud] "No, Rod. We have rules against that!"

(So that students don't become dependent on our assistence, we had a rule: three one hour appointments a week, Monday through Friday)

And thus concludes my as near as I can recollection of Rod. I actually kind of miss the guy, and I hope he's doing well.

In regard to Crystal, there are only three things I can clearly recall.

Once, when I was tutoring her, for her paper were she had to write about why she liked a certain career, she said "If I, like, didn't have art, then I'd die." And she was completely serious.

Another time, with another tutor, which was on something British or other, she was explaining the info she had already collected, and she said "You know, Louie X-I-V" saying each letter. What she had meant was Louis XIV.

The third thing about Crystal, that has nothing to do with the valleygirlstupidity craziness that would come out of her mouth, happened to my coworker.

During the tutoring session, apparently as they were discussing whatever topic, Crystal under the guise of discreetness, looking the tutor in the face and feigning attention, stuck her hand in her armpit and then proceeded to smell it after she pulled her hand out. Not only did she do this once, but she did it twice, one for each armpit. All the while, the tutor is talking, trying to concentrate on the essay subject matter, containing all puzzlement and disgust. Then Crystal proceeds to take out her earrings and smell them as well.

The weirdest part about all of this being that Crystal seemed to think she was being discreet, even though they were sitting right next to each other, and there is no way one person can miss another person doing that, especially when they are looking right at each other.

So yeah, that concludes my WC tales.

"There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance." —Goethe