Hi, it’s me again. Yes, I need to write so as to bring calm to my mind. Why else would I write? Then, let us begin.
I am filled with dread by the mere thought of having to go to the music tutorial. I don’t understand music. I love listening to music, but I don’t understand music theory. And what use is learning an antiquated and stagnated theory? And to be honest, I don’t care to understand it! It would require too much from me; not that I have the capacity to learn it. To wit: I am not musical.
Honestly, what is the point of a classical education. What is the point of St. John’s?
The point of a classical education and probably all education is to instruct. I am not sure if it is intended to help develop those capacities that exist in the individual in potentia. I mean, what good is it to make a mathematically-driven individual study Ovid? Will he have the capacity to see the beauty in his poetry? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Should he be forced to because it is a requirement? And what is a requirement, a way of creating a job for someone, i.e., a professor, that would otherwise would be unemployed?
Would not a professor prefer to have someone that wants to be there and not somewhere else. I stare out the window and see myself exploring ancient ruins in Northern Africa. Sometimes I am riding a camel on my way to a Berber village, lost in a sea of sand dunes; oh how insignificant I am! How small and tiny!
It does not help that I miss California. I miss home … that home, that bit of land that saw me grow and instilled in me a love for all things foreign.
Life is simple; we complicate it. I may not know what I must do or should I say, what I should do. I may not even know what I want, but I definitely know what I don’t want and that includes music theory and all the fastidiousness that accompanies St. John’s. How absurd of a place, where professors call themselves tutors. Where by having everyone use formal names, an air of equality is created. But how easily the façade collapses in the don rag. One is degraded to a thing, to something that is not even present although one is in the same room, heart ready to leap off from tongue! “Mr. Quiles is afraid to take a leadership rôle in the class….” And in your defence you state, “I don’t wish to take a leadership role. I am happy to contribute but the other students do not take me seriously and no-one will follow me. How can I lead if no-one will follow?”
I heard that Christ returned. I ran to see, to witness his second coming with my own eyes. And lo, there he was! I trembled! The myth was true, fancy that!
But sadly, no-one else seemed to believe him. Oh holy prince! I approached him, looked into his dejected face, his eyes ready to bleed tears. “It is you! Savior!” And he looked at me, with his hands pulling my face close to his. Thus he was able to read what was on my mind: “How ironic, the Redeemer needing redemption!”
How vile!