I FINALLY FIND VALIDATION OF MY IDIOCY by Daniel Renfrow
It took me two years of Advanced Placement classes in high school to come to the not so startling realization that I am completely incapable of forming logical arguments. I always performed well in English on papers and timed writings, but that is only because I am gifted at making arguments that are vague enough that my teachers can interpret them in any way they choose. I could write three pages of vague ramblings about a book during a timed writing and easily receive the score of an eight. My technique was to make my argument have just enough details to convince the teacher that I had read the book, while allowing the teacher to unconsciously develop my argument for me.
My long suspected idiocy was validated in public through the dreaded group discussions of AP English. Every time we had one I would always raise my hand and then say some idiotic statement that had no connection to the book or even the topic. The main cause of the problem is my five second memory. I would literally think of an argument, begin to raise my hand, and then forget what I was going to say by the time my hand was finally raised. I would then make some idiotic statement about how it was all the white man’s fault the Africans were dying by the river in Heart of Darkness.
“Umm….. It’s because white men are evil, and, and…. It’s just the white mans fault because they are…. Ummmm… aaaaaa… abusing the natives, because they are black and not white like the white men, because it is all because of the white men that they are dying. Did I mention that it was the white man’s fault? … Um.. Yeah, that’s all I have to say.”
The Conrad discussion was the pits, but it can by no means be overshadowed by my Pride and Prejudice presentation. My partner and I decided to do a Marxist criticism of the novel. It was a novel idea, but I failed to do sufficient research on Marxism before our presentation, and the little I had learned I soon forgot. During the presentation I read line from line from the power point my partner had made; with each line I died a little. When I had to elaborate on what I was saying I merely said various contradicting statements which eventually revealed that Marxism had nothing to do with Pride and Prejudice (I now realize it does—so much class conflict).
My senior year of high school I took AP Economics. I would rather sell one of my kidneys on the Indian black market then take economics again. No, I take that back. I would give the kidney away for free, and allow an untrained physician to cut it out with a blunt and rusty paring knife.
Economics is a completely foreign language to me. I would sit blurry eyed in class everyday and not even understand the questions the students were asking. The horrifying thing is that it is not like I just didn’t understand the concept of what the students were asking, I didn’t even understand any of the words. It was like they were speaking in Mandarin or Ancient Greek. At the end of every period I would emerged from class with further validation of my long suspected idiocy. It initially came as a surprise to me, but it shouldn’t have. My sudden realization at age fifteen that pickles are made from cucumbers should have been enough warning of this truth. I guess up to that point I had just thought that they were already sour when they were picked from their vines. Do cucumbers grow on vines?
To mask my idiocy I switched to a hot white chocolate mocha during our macroeconomics study groups because I thought it made me look more studious (Frappuccinos seem a little too trendy). I even considered getting fake glasses to make me look more like an intellectual, but I didn’t have the courage to go through with the plan. It would have been too drastic of a makeover. Also, what would have happened if there was an American resurfacing of the Khmer Rouge? I would be clubbed to death simply because I had on fake glasses. It was not a risk I was willing to take. I therefore, simply allowed the people in my study group to baby-sit me. I had nothing else to do, so I figured I might as well provide a little comic relief to distract them from their confusing world of monetary policy and stagflation.
My comic relief quickly grew old and I wandered off outside to make clover necklaces for my fellow studiers. Their excitement over my new craft was a great deal less than I anticipated. We (I should say “They”) eventually decided that we should go over to a friend’s house so I would cook them dinner. I obviously had nothing better to do with my time. I suppose I could have gone home and resorted to my usual past time of sitting on my futon and staring blankly at my wall while pretending to read great works of literature (I will convince them yet!), but that gets boring after a few hours. I therefore employed my excellent cooking skills to bring to them a Giada de Laurintis worthy meal of fettuccini alfredo.
I took the macroeconomics exam the next morning and failed it fabulously. Instead of bull-shitting my way through the short answer section I decided to draw pictures. My favorite one was of a deranged lion commanding a stick man to draw a graph of the foreign exchange market or he would devour him. I’m sure that one was a favorite of the exam graders, along with my depiction of the invisible hand with a line drawn across the wrist that said “please cut here.” I also drew a graph of the production possibilities curve showing the correlation between contraceptives and baby food, as well as soy and soy.
The validation of my idiocy in high school has been extremely helpful to me now that I am in college. I have now learned that being intelligent is not as important as appearing intelligent. As I traverse the campus of Texas State I come in contact with many people who appear intelligent but are actually imbeciles, and many people who appear rather unintelligent and are actually geniuses. My goal is to be perceived as a synthesis of the two.
//ww
My long suspected idiocy was validated in public through the dreaded group discussions of AP English. Every time we had one I would always raise my hand and then say some idiotic statement that had no connection to the book or even the topic. The main cause of the problem is my five second memory. I would literally think of an argument, begin to raise my hand, and then forget what I was going to say by the time my hand was finally raised. I would then make some idiotic statement about how it was all the white man’s fault the Africans were dying by the river in Heart of Darkness.
“Umm….. It’s because white men are evil, and, and…. It’s just the white mans fault because they are…. Ummmm… aaaaaa… abusing the natives, because they are black and not white like the white men, because it is all because of the white men that they are dying. Did I mention that it was the white man’s fault? … Um.. Yeah, that’s all I have to say.”
The Conrad discussion was the pits, but it can by no means be overshadowed by my Pride and Prejudice presentation. My partner and I decided to do a Marxist criticism of the novel. It was a novel idea, but I failed to do sufficient research on Marxism before our presentation, and the little I had learned I soon forgot. During the presentation I read line from line from the power point my partner had made; with each line I died a little. When I had to elaborate on what I was saying I merely said various contradicting statements which eventually revealed that Marxism had nothing to do with Pride and Prejudice (I now realize it does—so much class conflict).
My senior year of high school I took AP Economics. I would rather sell one of my kidneys on the Indian black market then take economics again. No, I take that back. I would give the kidney away for free, and allow an untrained physician to cut it out with a blunt and rusty paring knife.
Economics is a completely foreign language to me. I would sit blurry eyed in class everyday and not even understand the questions the students were asking. The horrifying thing is that it is not like I just didn’t understand the concept of what the students were asking, I didn’t even understand any of the words. It was like they were speaking in Mandarin or Ancient Greek. At the end of every period I would emerged from class with further validation of my long suspected idiocy. It initially came as a surprise to me, but it shouldn’t have. My sudden realization at age fifteen that pickles are made from cucumbers should have been enough warning of this truth. I guess up to that point I had just thought that they were already sour when they were picked from their vines. Do cucumbers grow on vines?
To mask my idiocy I switched to a hot white chocolate mocha during our macroeconomics study groups because I thought it made me look more studious (Frappuccinos seem a little too trendy). I even considered getting fake glasses to make me look more like an intellectual, but I didn’t have the courage to go through with the plan. It would have been too drastic of a makeover. Also, what would have happened if there was an American resurfacing of the Khmer Rouge? I would be clubbed to death simply because I had on fake glasses. It was not a risk I was willing to take. I therefore, simply allowed the people in my study group to baby-sit me. I had nothing else to do, so I figured I might as well provide a little comic relief to distract them from their confusing world of monetary policy and stagflation.
My comic relief quickly grew old and I wandered off outside to make clover necklaces for my fellow studiers. Their excitement over my new craft was a great deal less than I anticipated. We (I should say “They”) eventually decided that we should go over to a friend’s house so I would cook them dinner. I obviously had nothing better to do with my time. I suppose I could have gone home and resorted to my usual past time of sitting on my futon and staring blankly at my wall while pretending to read great works of literature (I will convince them yet!), but that gets boring after a few hours. I therefore employed my excellent cooking skills to bring to them a Giada de Laurintis worthy meal of fettuccini alfredo.
I took the macroeconomics exam the next morning and failed it fabulously. Instead of bull-shitting my way through the short answer section I decided to draw pictures. My favorite one was of a deranged lion commanding a stick man to draw a graph of the foreign exchange market or he would devour him. I’m sure that one was a favorite of the exam graders, along with my depiction of the invisible hand with a line drawn across the wrist that said “please cut here.” I also drew a graph of the production possibilities curve showing the correlation between contraceptives and baby food, as well as soy and soy.
The validation of my idiocy in high school has been extremely helpful to me now that I am in college. I have now learned that being intelligent is not as important as appearing intelligent. As I traverse the campus of Texas State I come in contact with many people who appear intelligent but are actually imbeciles, and many people who appear rather unintelligent and are actually geniuses. My goal is to be perceived as a synthesis of the two.
//ww