I’d like to tell a tale of wickedness now. This will contrast nicely with my comments yesterday on prayer. I was always a solid A- student: pretty good, but just lazy enough to fail a little. With this said, I always expected at least my A-. It is a sad, sad story when an admittedly partial failure will get furious when not receiving her expected due, but this is the case. I was taking an American Humanities at BYU and we had a regular assignment of a single-spaced one page paper due every Monday on a text or piece of artwork. I had been receiving low B’s so far that semester on these assignments. Let us just say that the anger was building into a mushroom cloud by about the half-way point when on one fatal day I received a solid C. “This is ridiculous!” I thought loudly, and with a hard and mean tone in my head. I knew it was time to do something different. Disliking the beg-for-my-grade approach, I opted out of stalking down my professor in his office. Besides, I liked him and didn’t want to unnecessarily antagonize him. Which we all know by now, is something I could really do with style.
Our assignment for the next week was on a book entitled, The Damnation of Theron Ware. I found the book depressing and had no interest whatsoever at that point in agreeing with my professor’s assessment of it. The issue question: “Was Theron Ware damned? Support you conclusion either way…” I remember feeling angry as I sat down in front of the computer. Suddenly, I felt a terrible need to swear my way through the paper. What better time to do it than now, I reasoned. The excuse is in the title. I began. From the beginning, Theron Ware was damned. It felt strong to start out that way, and not because of the swear-word. Here begins one of my most important moments in learning how to write. Anyway, I continued to use the word d— in every form possible and as many times as I could throughout the course of the paper. The solid A I received the next week let me know I was onto something good in my writing approach. I finally understood what a thesis really was. So much for being right.
So sorry about how I seem to need to recount wickedness periodically. None for next time though. Instead, stay tuned for some Alaskana. I will recount the touching though somewhat delirious saga of my move to Anchorage and some of its painful and wonderful aftereffects.
