Acting in the Face of Judgements

In the sixth grade, I picked up Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None after something about it had been brought up in class (I honestly don't remember what exactly). The teacher took one look at me reading that and said "Hailey, I don't think you can handle that book." My reaction? Of course, keep reading that book, and write a B+ essay on it. Bam.

Although that was eight years ago, that trend still follows me.

I wanted to sign up for the Victorian Literature course for this coming fall semester, so I did. A few days after I registered for it, my academic advisor said that she needed to meet with me. Earlier today, when we met, she told me that the professor of the class thought that I could not handle the class. Technically, she could not bar me from taking the course as although it is a 300-level course there are no prerequisites for the class.

Where did this come from? The one time I had met the professor--almost two years ago--I was very anxious about a plethora of different thing. It was incoming students day, and we were meeting with advisors about course scheduling for the fall, etc., and I had to meet with the person who coordinates services for students with disabilities at the same time as this session. It was a new setup to have advisors meet with a group of students, and I was in a new place with new people and, honestly, a little scared about missing that other appointment. Long story short, we both left that meeting with negative views of each other.

When I saw that this same professor was offering a course on Victorian Literature, and it was a course that would satisfy the writing level graduation requirement, I was conflicted. On one hand, I really wanted to take this course. On the other, it was with her. But, I decided to put that behind me and sign up anyway.

I can't say I was overly surprised when the professor wanted to meet with me before this course. What I was surprised about was how well this meeting went. In fact, I'm not exactly sure it could have gone any better.

I came in with my tail between my legs. She started to talk about the course, in a way that seemed like she was trying to scare me out of taking the course, but it actually made me want to take the course even more. She asked what kind of literary background I had, so I told her about how I had been published with UAL last fall. On learning that it was about Doctor Who, she insisted that I meet a colleague of hers who was also a Whovian after we were done talking.

Just before we finished talking, I brought up that first circumstance under which we had met. I apologised. Her response was that she thought it was a "mature and professional" thing to do. I explained that I had a lot of extraneous stress, and that sealed the deal. There was a look of surprise on her face when I said "extraneous".

While introducing me to this colleague, the department chair came by. She introduced me to her, as well, although we had already met as the Theatre Arts and English departments are the same department. She said, "this is Ley. She will be taking my Victorian Lit course in the fall."


I think there is still some reservations that she has on me. I know that I will have to work very, very hard on this course to prove that I can handle it.

We shall see...