> I assume some of the academics out there have noticed the practical
> use of speed by college students, especially at exam time? I recently
> noticed some media outlet reporting on it rather breathlessly, which
> amused me tremendously, as this particular form of drug use had been
> widespread at least since my freshman year.
This tickled me very much, especially considering the .sig:
> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure
> mægen lytlað."
I went to a fairly low-pressure hippie school, but did have the opportunity to study some slightly unusual stuff -- including Anglo-Saxon (or Old English if you want to be persnickety). My tutor had assigned me to read and translate The Battle of Maldon, from which this line is taken, before our next meeting.
Of course I delayed and delayed and finally embarked upon the project around sundown on the day before the deadline. So I took some kind of speed or other -- God knows what it was -- and out of habit brewed myself a big pot of coffee and holed myself up in a cubbyhole in the student center, to which I had somewhat irregular access, so that no acquaintance would happen upon me and distract me from my duty.
Now I had never read the Battle Of Maldon, even in translation, and there was no Web in those days. So I didn't know who won the battle.
As the evening wore on, I sank deeper and deeper into the text. I could really, and I mean really, hear the swords clashing and see the ravens wheeling over the battlefield. I kept pouring coffee while madly scribbling out my very rough and ready translation.
Long about four AM I became strongly aware that my bladder required relief. But I also really needed to know what happened to Byrhtnoth & Co.
It was a near thing, but I finally dashed down my oafish rendering of "heow and hynde, oð þaet he on hilde gecranc" and sprinted faster than I have ever run before or since through the palely lightening matin corridors of the deserted student center to the chamber of ease.
I remember the Battle Of Maldon a lot more vividly than many of the other texts I read. Partly this is because it's a terrific poem, but some considerable credit is also due to the drugs, a very underrated pedagogical aid.
In fact, drugs and drink are the only things that can make it endurable to be the object of pedagogy, if you have any self-respect at all.
--
Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com http://cars-suck.org
"You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better." -- W.T. Sherman