I had a lot of really interesting conversations with Professor Samatar, who is absolutely notorious for being rigorously academic, strict, and set in his opinions. I actually had the gumption to mention my doubts about higher education to him at a casual dinner, and he has been surprisingly enough very respectful of my hippy-dippy remarks since then. He is the kind of man who wears a suit to school because it commands respect, and it conveys respect for his students. He really believes in people demonstrating that they are serious about things--in general, things and people and endeavors should be taken very seriously, papers should be handed in with the proper format, etc. He resents sloppiness. He has somehow realized (I guess it isn't exactly a secret) that I fall somewhat on the other side of the debate. He showed me a passage in a book he was reading about the ways of the Samurai, saying that the samurai always has his hair combed, a disposition of perfect grace, always composed and clean, because he never knows when his death is coming and he wants to die with honor. It's a good point--you always want to make a good impression. I agree with him in a way--I do think that dressing neatly shows respect for a situation/audience, that being thorough and careful with your reports conveys motivation, that perfect diction is what is needed to articulate a point. My response to him, though, was that the problem with this mindset is that it will automatically discount a lot of very valid knowledge. I think it is awfully arrogant and immature to disregard someone's perspective because he had a ketchup stain on his tie, the report wasn't stapled, the speaker didn't have a good grip on parallel structure, or she did not knows English good.

I guess this kind of reflects something that I've been trying to work on in general this year...really interacting with the part of the person that matters. If I stop listening to someone because they have an irking nasal quality to their voice, because they are wearing a Nike t-shirt, because they like George Bush, I'm the one who is missing out. It isn't always the intuitive thing to do, but life seems to be a lot more worthwhile when you really listen to what people are trying to say, or at least try to understand what they are about. It reminds me of the attitude of those truly brilliant music aficionados who recognize great songs when they hear them; whether they are modern country or old jazz singers or Indian drummers. I love people who can have that attitude--it would never even occur to me to enjoy certain things in life until someone I respect gestures towards them, like wine or cheese or Woody Guthrie or the way that tea bags spin when you lift them out of your cup.