Mama Kat's Writer's Prompts:

****PLEASE!! Before reading my writer's prompts, PLEASE GO TO THIS LINK TO ENTER MY WINGS GIVEAWAY!!!! GORGEOUS wings up for grabs! Thanks friends!!****

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On many a Thursday, I have been inspired to write my Mama Kat's Writer's Prompts. Because of my lovely giveaway, I was going to put it off this week and focus on that- BUT, then I saw the prompts, and they are FAR too tempting to ignore.

There is a certain teacher that I have wanted to immortalize in infamy for a good long time. Now is my chance.

2.) But teachers know everything!! Write about a time a teacher disappointed you.

I suppose that there have been many teachers who have disappointed me. Most of them for different reasons, or because they were terrible, or because they embarrassed me somehow.

But one that sticks out very clearly in my mind is a teacher I had in College. I was in my 3rd year. I was just about to finally get my Associates (yeah- I'm a slacker and took a few too many "Mickey Mouse" classes) and my whole semester was full of classes that, well, sucked. Math classes, science classes, all the ones I don't care for.

Unfortunately for me, I was above and beyond what I needed for my most beloved and preferred English requirements and the school, for some reason, would not let me continue in those classes (poetry, creative writing, literature, etc.) until I finished off the math and science portion of the requirements.

I WAS, however, able to take a class that was BELOW my level. So I took an entry level English class- I believe it was English 1020 or something of the like.

I was really excited for this because while, for me, it was very basic and covered pretty much everything I had studied in my AP English class in High School (we even used the exact same book) I was looking forward to discussing some of my favorite classic novels, short stories and poetry. I was even looking forward to the essays I would be writing. And I was hoping that something new would be thrown in there too.

Unfortunately, I learned from the first day that my teacher had a very different idea of what a "classic" novel was, as he told us we could read anything we wanted as long as it was "popular" which included Harry Potter, anything by Stephen King, or Beverly Cleary.

I was shocked. And for my first novel, I picked The Scarlet Letter, which, after reading my first essay, he concluded that I was not advanced enough for such reading and insisted that I delve into a book called Prince Of Tides (which was disturbing, sickening and absolutely NOT a classic, in my mind) because it would "help me solve all of my obvious family problems." How he would know about any family problems I had after a week of class and one essay about The Scarlet Letter, I have no idea.

The semester went on with the same kind of things happening left and right. My interpretations of short stories were cut down, even though my research and other past, more advanced training in the subject screamed that I was correct.

He even said he hated Shakespeare and gave a lecture about how Shakespeare's sonnet # 130:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

was about a man who was trapped within his own self loathing because of a "fatal attraction" to a woman who was less than beautiful, in fact, she was ugly, and smelly, and altogether not good enough for him, which would, ultimately lead to murder.

My OWN interpretation was that this sonnet is beautiful and hope for all women as none of us can ever hope to be absolutely perfect, and that a man will someday love us dearly, despite our faults.

Clearly, I was mistaken.

My disappointment was absolutely sealed at the end of the year, when his last assignment was that we watch a movie of our choice, and write about all the Atheist/Anarchy symbolism, which, according to him, was the nature of man and thus lay in everything we create.

My essay was a 5 page bunch of bovine excrement about Mandy Moore's movie "A Walk To Remember."

Of course, if you've seen the movie, you'll be able to imagine that my intentions were completely satirical. But he was too dumb to see it.

It was the only paper in that class that I received an A on.