The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side

I like complaining. I like comparing. I like compounding my misery by believing in my own exaggerated concoctions. I attended the English Paper 2 review this morning and my goodness the stuff I heard was out of this world. I felt enlightened, felt empowered, felt exactly how I'd envision every literature student would want to be made to feel by his inspiring teacher. (I have thus far been using a literary device!) Except, I had a grievance. Those two inspiring teachers weren't mine. They were someone else's, some people else's, some class else's. And why! Why am I stuck with a teacher who doesn't seem to possess their faculty for penetrating analysis, for stimulating discussion, for troubleshooting students' essay-writing problems? Life doesn't seem fair.

Then again, I like reflecting, I like rethinking and reexamining the emotions I feel in the "heat of the moment". Then it hit me. If everybody looked at what they do not have and complain the way I do, the world shall be such a nasty place to inhabit. In compensation for this run-of-the-mill teacher I have had the moderating endowments of a competent and knowledgeable teacher for the other part of the subject and (like an advance gift of a tributary mission sent ahead of the "real deal") one of those two aforementioned gentlemen for this part in question last year.

In addition, why did I not realise the absolute brilliance of my History teacher last year, the man who encouraged his students to think for themselves, who instructed them to challenge their "known"s and sacred cows, who supported them with a near-omniscient listening ear? Brilliance further emphasised by the contrasting alternative. If you know what I mean. The songs I have in my iPod become fairly ordinary after awhile (unless Bon Jovi and LeAnn Rimes combined to sing them), but songs whose intrinsic value (I am so sorry to impose such a Romantic or Modernist conception of intrinsic worth and objective being on a poor song - and again I am sorry to Romanticise the concept of a song as in "poor song" - not Daniel) are at best equal to those in my iPod but which I do not have in MP3 version always seem the most enticing and valued. And why? If I were to be Reductionist (and use the scientific method which is too simple for us Humanities scholars - note the choice of word) I'd simply say it's because I do not have these songs and demonstrate the natural human tendency to cherish dearer what I cannot have. But somehow, that's true. I am hunting for a Dan Hill CD since I am starting to like his songs. What are you gaping at? 70s/80s songs are the best. Unless they're in Mandarin. Again I am perilously close to a subscription to the belief that what is in and of the past should be valuable and treasured. The Romantic view of the past is innately Victorian. Go figure.