Confessions of a Recovering Grammar Nazi

We all know a Grammar Nazi.  They pop out of the woodwork when you least expect them, so eager to correct your abominable lack of command of the English language.  While a normal person may cringe inwardly at the incorrect usage of 'your' in a tweet, the Grammar Nazi pounces, completely unable to see beyond the seemingly unforgivable lapse.

As a communications student, I'm required to take an introductory grammar class.  At news of this, many of my friends were very excited and offered forth their personal grammar pet peeves, many of which I will freely admit to sharing.  The class is intended to provide students with a solid foundation in English grammar so we can go forth and write confidently.  It certainly is doing that.  However, my grammar class has produced an unintended consequence for me - it has cured me of my grammar nazism.

I only really began to become aware of the Grammar Nazi when I started reading the comments to news stories, something I don't recommend to anyone who doesn't want to become immediately enraged or depressed or some combination of the two.  While it seemed, to me, perfectly natural to become outraged at some block-head's bigoted opinion, I could not believe the vitriol with which others could attack a person and their argument on the basis of a simple grammatical error. 

A discussion in my grammar class about why Grammar Nazis are so enthusiastic got me seriously rethinking my own grammar superiority complex.  When I judge someone for poor grammar use, what am I really judging them for? A bad education? Low intelligence?  A lack of understanding of accepted cultural norms? It really isn't much of a stretch from there to the fringes of our society or a person's culture itself.  When I judged someone for their bad use of grammar was I really judging them for being poor?  The idea made me a little sick.

Apart from teaching me the rules, my grammar class has imparted a healthy appreciation for where they come from.  Which is pretty much nowhere.  There is no wizard in the sky who dictates the rules of English to us.  English has evolved and continues to do so.  It is a child of popular culture.  'Ain't' was perfectly acceptable and used by upper classes in the 19th century until it fell to popular use and became a marker for the working class.  So if the 'rules' have been made up while we went along, who am I to impose them on anyone else?  And if the rules exist to make sure that we can be understood, and if my brain is smart enough to understand your meaning in spite of your grammar, what the problem is?

I admit to correcting someone's grammar on a Facebook post a couple of years ago and feeling pretty smug at the time about it.  Thinking back on it now, I realize that I did it more to be an asshole than anything else.  And that's what Grammar Nazis are: assholes.  No one looks at a snarky grammar comment or twitter reply and says to themselves "Gosh, that person really is smart".  While you are congratulating yourself on your service to the English language, I'm wondering what you're overcompensating for.  When you viciously attack someone for a simple grammatical mistake, you are not proving your superiority.  You are proving that you're a dick with good grammar. 

So I'm giving it up.  I was taught not to judge people unfairly based on how they are dressed or what race they are.  Why shouldn't that extend to how they speak or write?  I believe the expression is, live and let live, ain't it?

Disagree?  Let's fight - with words! Over coffee!  And by coffee I mean beer!

Like a Scholar

Hands down, one of my favorite things so far about being a mature student is how darn academic I've been feeling lately.  Maybe it's all the time I've been spending in the library, but I can almost feel my synapses working overtime.  

In my previous life as a university student, I had surprisingly little time to devote to actual learning.  Sure I went to class and did my assignments, but I always had this sneaking suspicion that I wasn't actually learning.  Maybe it was just my program.  Business at the undergraduate level isn't exactly academic.  It tries really hard but it's almost too practical to be scholarly.  By all means, correct me if I'm wrong.  If you know of something new and exciting to be discovered about supply chain logistics, then let's get a bottle of scotch and chat.  

But seriously, as a business student at a large university, I often found myself jealous of friends who were doing interesting research and presenting at student conferences while I was deriving financial formulas.  I will fully admit that part the fault for my disconnect from the hallowed halls of higher learning lies squarely on my own shoulders.  I was a full time student trying to work as much as possible to pay for my education and that just didn't leave a whole lot of room for extra-curriculars.

Thanks to an amazingly supportive partner and a new attitude towards student debt (I'm so sorry Gail Vaz-Oxley!), I am giving myself the gift of focusing on being a full time student and the difference is astounding.  For the first time I feel like I'm engaged in actual learning!  I'm having moments where I'm analyzing things around me in the context of my course material.  For real.  I actually have time to talk to my professors, something I've never done before.  It is truly amazing how much fun a research paper can be when you actually pick a topic that you are interested in and not one that will just be easy to finish in the least amount of time.  It probably doesn't hurt that I'm actually studying something that I'm interested in.  I will never underestimate the value of that again.

Yesterday I sat down to have a chat with one of my professors.  I have a pretty intense research paper for her class due in December and couldn't think of a good topic.  I had an idea in my head for a project but knew that it was too big a mountain to conquer for the class but I just could not get past it.  It was rolling around in my head just dying to get out.  It's the type of idea that requires actual, primary research because there really isn't much out there on it.  I brought my snazzy idea to my professor with the hope that she would be able to cure me of it and send me off with a topic that would be more realistic for the assignment.  Thankfully, she did just that - and then blew my scholarly brains by suggesting that I could use my research paper assignment as a jumping off point for getting funding to do ACTUAL RESEARCH for my BIG IDEA.  With a big wig researcher.  In Toronto.

I don't know if this will actually happen.  Right now I'm just excited that my brain is working and that I'm still capable of individual creative thought.  But it is a possibility.  One that I never would have considered in my previous academic life.  Ladies and gentlemen, I'm feeling scholarly.  I just might wear tweed tomorrow.

Is My Grey Hair Showing?

I was 17 years old on my first day of university 10 years ago.  This fact weighed heavily on my mind when I started my second undergrad degree this September.  10 years ago I was self conscious about how young I was compared to everyone at Grant MacEwan.  Everyone seemed so much older than me. Most of my peers had gone to the University of Alberta and I found my 17 year old self making friends with 21 year olds. I thought I was soooo cool.

10 years later, I know I'm not cool and this time, I'm self conscious about how incredibly old I feel.  Grant MacEwan has changed since I first started.  The crowd of older students is still there but since becoming a university, MacEwan seems to have attracted many more fresh from high school, first-time post-secondary students.  I tried to mentally prepare myself for being surrounded by teenaged behaviors and speech but found myself completely unprepared for the shock of the physical variety.  On my first day this year, I couldn't help being completely amazed by how small everyone was!  I'm 5'2" and for the first time ever I felt like I was towering above the masses.  Are kids no longer drinking milk?  Are they drinking organic, hormone-free milk?  Should they be switching back to the hormone laced variety?  It was deeply disturbing.  And they all looked like they couldn't have weighed more than 100lbs.!  Where is the obesity epidemic I keep hearing about?  All I could see were waifs in leggings and impossibly skinny jeans.

Thankfully, with the help of enthusiastic moisturizing habits, I don't think that I necessarily look much older than my fellow students but there are subtle differences that might have given me away.  Having been in the job market for the last 4 years, my casual wardrobe is not exactly trendy.  For four years I've been spending money on nice grown up clothes and that usually means classic not trendy.  I told myself that I wouldn't give in, that I would continue to dress like the grown-up I'd worked so hard to convince myself I was.  I lasted a week before I began bemoaning my lack of leggings and Toms shoes.  I still don't own either of those but I don't know how much longer I can hold out.  For now my school style mantra is "don't dress like a soccer mom" though this is probably a great disservice to some of the exceptionally attired soccer moms I've encountered.  Thankfully sweatpants are still a standard that I can rise above.  I may not be trendy, but at least I'm not wearing sweatpants in public. Yet.

And yes, there is the matter of the grey hair.  Although everyone I've ever complained to has reassured me that my grey hair is not nearly as visible as I think it is, I panicked like a cornered gazelle during the first week when I noticed in a bathroom mirror that the location of the part in my hair had flipped to reveal the almost perfect stripe of grey that has emerged over the years.  I thought I had done such a good job of hiding it until my next hair appointment, but alas, I had failed.  I broke down and bought a box of hair dye that day.

So now with my grey hair banished and my wardrobe de-soccer momified, I am carefully trying to blend in with teenagers.  Or at least go unnoticed by them.  Until I open my mouth.  But that's another story.

Take That, Dad!

In Which I Bitch-Slap Expectations...

I have always been the type of person that people expected to go to graduate school.  My dad started collecting MBA brochures for me when I was in the third year of my undergraduate degree.  I even expected myself to go to graduate school.  It was like an eventuality, the accepted order of operations: high school diploma, undergraduate degree, Masters' degree.  So to say that my family and friends reacted with surprise at my decision to get a second undergrad degree would be a gross understatment.

They were shocked.  They were appalled.  But you have a Commerce degree! they all exclaimed.  That makes you employable and valuable! they protested.  Shouldn't you be going to law school? they asked.  My poor dad just shook his head and didn't say a word so deep was his disappointment and confusion.

This September, as I started my second undergrad degree (an Arts degree, no less), I was acutely aware that at least two people from my high school graduating class were starting law school, that one person I had gone to university with was starting a Masters' degree at Oxford and that another had just finished a PhD in Chemical Engineering.  Even my sister, who in spite of being brilliant is the sibling that everyone secretly worries about being able to support herself  as an artist and musician, was doing a Masters' in Architecture.  And I am starting an Arts undergrad degree.  Over the past 10 years, I have managed to seriously defy everyone's expectations and majorly underachieve in comparison.

Here's the best part - I'm totally fine with this.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I'm getting to a point where I'm totally fine with this.  I'm close.  I prefer not to think of myself as an underachiever.  I like to think of it as more of a wanderlust.  I still fully expect myself to achieve great things over the course of my lifetime but I'm going to do it on my terms and in my own time.

Unlike my first degree, I'm studying what I want to not what is expected of me.  I'm allowing myself the luxury of immersing myself in a subject that I am interested in and excited about.  I'm indulging my creative side for a change and it feels damn good.  Expectations and judgements can take a back seat for now because no one who has done anything brilliant has done it by following the rules.  Order of operations be damned, I'm an undergraduate student - again.