Monday, November 27, 2006

You Have Derailed.

Today, we slogged into class, trying to escape the lingering effects of tryptophan, fighting to overcome the holiday food-hangover. This afternoon, I had to give a short, 10-minute presentation to my evolutionary bio class. I wasn't alone in this; everyone had to present. Topics were all vaguely related to evolution. Some had a scientific bent, others quite contemporary stretches that attempted to throw in a little evolution.

Last week, my nemesis wouldn't shut the hell up during his talk. Honestly, his presentation lasted about 20 minutes; the time limit was, of course, 10. He just could not stop talking and wrap it up. Best of all, he's up there blabbering and blabbering about menopause. Twice as long as allowed, endlessly talking about the evolutionary aspects of menopause. Outstanding.

Today, I joked with him that I was going to talk for at least 30 minutes, just to beat his time. Unfortunately, I didn't know that one of our classmates actually had designs to do just that. One woman in our program has done tons of graduate work in Women's Studies. (Much to our chagrin, she's frequently pointing this out. ) She's the self-anointed keeper of all things related to feminism, of being "liberal," and of trying to be shocking by speaking frankly about sex. All of this makes for very, very entertaining and slightly annoying viewing. Often, though, she's so wrapped up in looking for deeper meanings in things that she misses the picture because she never takes off the "Women's Studies" hat. Never. Hell, even Freud said that, sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.

Today, she presented on a book titled The Woman Who Didn't Evolve. Although I can't recall her name, the author wrote it in the late 1970's and, from what I understood, made some reasonable arguments about why females were absent from the scientific discussion of evolution. Unfortunately, none of the reasoning came through in this presentation.

My classmate has a tendency to stray off topic quite easily. For instance, instead of summarizing the book per our assignment, she basically turned it into a rambling indictment of gender descriptions in scientific publication, a half-assed lecture on sexual politics, and failed attempt to flex her intellect. Any credible information she was discussing was buried so deep in her caustic, wandering commentary, there is no way anybody understood a freakin' bit of what she was blathering on and on and on about. Jesus, by the end of her talk, I was almost on the table screaming "Girl Power" and burning a bra. It was supposed to be a book report on evolution, for the love of Pete.

No shit, she came off like any stereotypical "angry feminist" character. My favorite part of her talk came at about 20 minutes into it. (She took the record with a final time of 25 minutes.) She goes to the chalkboard, draws a vagina, identifies the clitoris, and draws three exclamation points. Then, she starts quoting "The Vagina Monologues." I sat there, not believing what I was watching, choking on my laughter, tears welling in my eyes. Today, my tuition was worth every stinking penny.