My teacher has mashed potato brains.

Maude here.

As you may have guessed, Quincy and I are young and spry individuals (unlike the “about page” photo). That being said, I’m still toooodling away in school, ever-so-gracefully acquiring basic-level classes in the glamorous world of community college.

Don’t get me wrong. Community college is an excellent, affordable way to smash in the classes that SHOULDN’T cost an arm and a leg to attend, but for heaven’s sake, some of the instructors shouldn’t be allowed to have degrees, let alone TEACH other intelligent lifeforms.

My case:
Whilst sitting in my remedial Anthropology class, we were given a quiz. Whilst taking that quiz, we were allowed to use our textbooks and notes. Strike one. (What is the point of taking a quiz if you’re literally just copying notes verbatim? I should’ve just submitted my notes for grading… duh.)

Several questions revolved around primate intelligence, specifically whether or not apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees had the ability to understand concepts like time (i.e. “later,” “tomorrow,” “yesterday,” etc). Pouring over my endless notes from class, my teacher had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince us that non-human primates were basically biological rejects that had no extraordinary or humanlike characteristics. My notes reflected her instruction. Upon viewing the quiz (which was obviously cut and pasted from an Anthropology online textbook), the first thing I saw was that the quiz clearly expected us to know that primates have been widely regarded as highly intelligent beings. In other words, EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THE TEACHER SAID. (I hope my caps lock made the impact this deserves.) Strike two.

Following the quiz, we found ourselves in a classroom discussion having to defend our body types. This discussion, loosely based on Cultural Anthropology, was a nightmare for any female who dared to look appropriate or… gasp… healthy. Yes, body shaming happens in “real life.” Yes, ALL kinds of body shaming is incredibly repulsive, whether you’re fit or not. It’s not about being “right” in regard to an ideal body type, it’s about having respect and tolerance for what YOU are and what OTHERS are. I should probably mention that this discussion was completely directed at the women in the room, while the men sat in their chairs, horrified. “Video games and social media only portray one kind of female body,” she stated. No big deal… so far, that’s fairly accurate…

She began again, “We should all be aware of this epidemic because not everybody looks like a Barbie. We don’t want to see a bunch of tall, blonde, skinny-ass girls walking around in cyberspace OR real life. If that’s your type, you should be ashamed. It perpetuates pedophilia and you should seek help now.” DEAD SILENCE. Everyone at my table had their jaws hanging open. I looked around nervously to find that all of the women taking the class, which numbered about 13 ladies, were all physically “stereotypically” beautiful. Wrong audience much? Strike three, you old dingbatty fart. You’re OUT.