Clever got me this far...

Last night in class, covering the Romantic movement in literature.

Divided into groups.

I've managed my way into the group with the three hottest men in class: a heavily inked rockabilly, an intelligent (but young) jock, and a built gym rat.

We talk. The jock and I flirt, the rockabilly and I alternate between debate and discussion of various forms of literature, I view, with pleasure, the gym rat, tease him and talk with him.

I don't think the last one is used to that, from a girl.

One of our classmates, a woman, politely requested him to stop talking during a presentation and he started chewing her out immediately, even though he was entirely in the wrong.

For as much shit as I give him, he leaves me verbally unmolested. He dismisses me as female because I am not the socially standard female, but not in the way where I become valueless like the other girls.

Masculine dandy, going places where other girls aren't allowed to venture.

Our group is asked to speak on a topic that Mr. Rockabilly and I quite disagreed on. I insist that he speaks first, and he does, does it well enough.

He's bright, but he's inexperienced. The things he has said to me during class and during breaks, about his viewpoints... he has a lot of living to do. But it doesn't seem like he has much interest in doing so. Not everyone wishes to expand their horizons.

Most people don't, I've found.

He speaks, and then I counter-point him.

Off-the-cuff, words roll out of my mouth, stilted... but the content is there. I did not prepare as much as glance at what we were reading and know that my closed-minded, open-mouthed man was wrong, not approaching things from a holistic perspective.

English doesn't teach you to do that.

Sociology does.

Novels are meant to be read as a whole. You can break down the chapters, the paragraphs, the sentences, but in the end it is meant to be taken as a single piece, as a sum of the parts... not just a solitary part.

Reading over the questions on the Power Point slide, answering them as I go, feeling that I am not doing the topic justice, that I should have read this before answering, not as I answer.

Then it's over.

We move onto the next, another classmate goes to answer a question...

But he's interrupted.

The facilitation leader cuts him off and turns to me. Stops the entire class to thank me for my viewpoint, tell me how wonderful it was, and ask me to elaborate further on the topic.

Half-second blank stare, add in a few more sentences that were formed during the shift between questions as my brain continued to construct on the idea I set forth.

There is that moment, that brief glow of acknowledgement. That I am... more. That I am able to set forth ideas and articulate them. I take pride on my ability to break things down to the lowest common denominator, accessibility is something I strive for, and one of the reasons you will occasionally find me ranting about certain authors (*cough*Gibson*cough*).

Mr. Rockabilly said to me, about two weeks ago, that whenever I talk in class, he listens. We goof off so much, read and surf the net, laugh and exchange jokes in whispers. But when I speak, he stops and listens.

That's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

Being back in college, sometimes I'm left feeling beyond it. Not quite superior, but just... more. Switching majors like I have leaves me lacking in certain background education most of my classmates have, but I'm able to hold my own and go beyond what they can because of the things I have done, the things I have been through or exposed myself to.

It's an interesting experience.

And now I'm hanging out with the "popular" crowd, making friends instead of having my nose buried in a book.

Who knew?