Why Can't You Just Shut Up?!
I'm taking a night class this semester, RS 100E, Biblical Studies I: Old Testament. Yes, two full years after I should have graduated, I'm still in school, and still taking 100 level classes. It's a good class, meaning a good prof, with some good students. Summer classes tend to have more engineering and math students in them, and they tend to think along the same lines, or at least use the same logic, that I do. There however one thing that ruins the class, or should I say one person. For the sake of anonymity, let's call this person Syrel. Syrel is an older student, 30 something, slowly beginning re-entry into the academic world. Syrel talks a lot, and I've narrowed it down to three reasons, 1) because Syrel has been away for too long and forgot that people aren't supposed to talk that much in class, 2) Syrel thinks that Syrel is the only one in the class, or 3) Syrel is the oldest person in the class, and feels that the oldest person in the class should grace the rest of us with their wisdom. The problem is that we can all tell, from the questions asked and the points offered up, that Syrel is not all that bright.

I am not a model student, and more participation would be good, I know, but I usually prefer to sit there, absorb what the prof is saying, then leave. Any unnecessary interuptions delay my leaving the class. Every time Syrel talks, I want to explode. I'm angry that my class time is being wasted, I feel awkward that someone so stupid is speaking in public, and I'm frustrated that even I could give the answer Syrel's asking for (even though I'd prefer to deliver the answer with a two-by-four to the forehead).

In our last class, we were discussing Old Testament Wisdom literature, and Proverbs in particular. We were discussing Proverbs 17:27-28. The prof said how, based on this passage, it is unclear whether a person being silent is wise or a fool. After a few other students added comments, I said, "I guess the only thing that's clear from this, is that it's only a fool that talks to much." As everyone started to laugh, I quickly thought, "I wonder if I'm the only one who's thinking about Sryel right now?" And then, in a moment so ironic, I couldn't have scripted it myself, Syrel spoke up, and said, "I always thought that people that talked a lot were wise because they had more to say." I hope I wasn't the only one that caught that irony. I felt standing up and yelling "You thought wrong!", like in the Back to the Future 3.

   [ posted by William @ 10:44 AM ]