Bohemian Bullshit

"You gotta learn to bullshit; Talk like a bohemian." he said.

The more I read, the more I am convinced I have no talent whatsoever with words, sentences and narratives. So I cannot, try as I might, make this any more interesting as it already is. Let me just give you some background.

The 'wise guy' who proclaimed the above is in my Survey of western art 2 class. We finally got our grades today. I always just thought to myself in that class, "I don't see it", "I don't get it" or sometimes even I don't agree. I constantly tried to analyze everything we read, watched and heard. Which would lead to me being overwhelmed by just how complex it all is. So much more involved than just memorizing dates and names like we did in survey 1. Thus, my final grade came as a complete surprise to me.

Walking out of the classroom, I casually asked him how he did in the class, and then remarked with a "good job!" when he started:

"Well, I was getting a C in this class, and I was scared I might go down to a D."
"oh..."
"But you know, you just gotta know how to bullshit. Learn to talk like a bohemian." he said while making grand gesture with his arm...
"uh... sure..."
I had, at that point, stopped paying attention.

Ever since 10th grade board exams, we have been told stuff like "Just make it look like you wrote a lot, nobody reads those essays anyways." or "Just throw big words in there". There were also tales of those who wrote plots of movies in their math papers and still passed. (I personally cannot verify that last one was true.) However, I considered that very unfair and never ever attempted such a thing. That is why finding a place where teachers actually take the time to read and remark on your college level papers with all their incoherence and grammatical errors was a reason for much joy.

I don't think I would have scored 100% on this class by bullshitting on the papers. I think it was my critical thinking and judging and analyzing that got me this mark. I am extremely happy about this.

I wish I could have been a little bit of a jerk that one time and told it to him to his face. Oh well, that's what I get for being a nice guy.