PARDON MY FRENCH
A cacophony of drilling and hammering woke me in a daze. “What the fuck?” I exclaimed, still half-asleep, while my roommate snored just as loudly as the construction. I was careful not to wake him while dressing myself in yesterday’s unwashed clothes. I am truly cursed by my own ingratitude, and cursed still further by the awareness of it—my complimentary hotel breakfast, on my complimentary class trip, courtesy of my complimentary tuition.
I should welcome whatever inconvenience hotel maintenance sees fit to subject me to.
Like the cold eggs and the carcinogenic deli meats, all other offerings are served at room temperature. I ate them, of course. When finished, I set my plate aside, signaling to the waitstaff that it was ready for retrieval, while drinking my machine-dispensed “Milchkaffee,” whatever that means. I don’t speak German; however, Vanessa Guinan-Bank does. She is the German journalist and course assistant, hired to mitigate the language barrier.
Vanessa sat across from me at breakfast.
She is a kind woman. Contemplative and well-mannered, yet I sense it unwise to cross her.
Esther Schor joined Vanessa and me soon after.
“Starry,” as she prefers to be addressed, is a faculty member at the university. Despite speaking with her for several hours on the first night of our trip, I failed to ask enough questions to know much about her. For most of that evening, I spoke at her. Perhaps that should not be considered a conversation since I wanted her to think highly of me, or, at the very least, not think too little of me—a theme consistent throughout my life, and evident in my relationship with my professor.
Professor Deborah Amos, or “Deb” as she asked us to call her, is a short-haired, short-statured, long-time international journalist. Her face is framed by her chic glasses, one of many fashion commonalities we share, as we humorously discovered on the first day of our trip when we both arrived dressed in head-to-toe denim, also known as a “Canadian tuxedo”.
Early every morning, two students are tasked with editing a blog post submitted the previous night by a couple of their peers. This was my morning to edit, and I was assisted by Vanessa, Starry, Deb and copious amounts of Milchkaffee.
The carefully chosen words written by my peers were subjected to our criticism for over an hour. I thought to myself– “Wow, this is good. I want to be like this. I want to write good too.” I want my linguistic gifts to be recognized and praised for their hyperspecificity, audacious yet cautionary, uncontested in my competition for greatness, with an unyielding aim for appreciation, revered by classmates whom I senior, awed by those who senior me, and produced effortlessly.
Perhaps this would require effort on my part. Perhaps I am trying too fucking hard. Perhaps I should welcome whatever inconvenience this course sees fit to subject me to.
Perhaps I should pardon my French.
– Ellis F. Speagle
