Oddball philo-types.

Lol I am terribly amused. Okay, for all you KI students in NJ, you know of the existence of C.L., right? You know, you know? Yes, you know. So after a rather disconcerting discussion with him, I was left rather perplexed and feeling utterly screwed. I left with his final words hanging darkly over my head: "I think you know your paper best, and you should know what to do. There's really nothing I can do to help." What a damning verdict, isn't it? Like my paper is so damn terrible that it's beyond salvation even in the hands of a higher power?

After frantic revisions and loads and loads of help (thank you all immensely!), I am now finally somewhat at ease with my essay. And C.L., who has so far been notorious for being more or less a bee-eye-tee-see-hech, was surprisingly nice and dropped me an email: "Although it may not sound it during our consultation, I do think your paper was well structured and well written."

Haha! I am now rather convinced that these oddball philo-types who behave like complete jerks in real-time conversation are actually rather nice inside. Or at least they've been trained just enough to know how to feel bad: only they don't know when. Hahaha.

Of course, though I always have a predisposed inclination to think that people are just lying through their teeth when they're being encouraging, the fact that he's an oddball philo-type just rules out that possibility. Oddball philo-types don't give a shit about niceties: so if they are ever civil, you know they most probably mean it.

And really, I think a world full of oddball philo-types would be pretty good to live in. Everybody's always honest, you'd know if someone is displeased or happy with you - none of that fake niceness you get everywhere, when people pretend to "love thy neighbour" - *ahem* - and claim that they will help to read your work, when actually they're just saying it so they can put it off and hope their promise goes unnoticed, or at least hope that the asker will have the delicacy to detect their reluctance.

Then again, all this shilly-shallying wouldn't even exist if nobody cared to ask favours of anybody. Asking for favours are such terrible things - puts one in the debts of others, and you never really know if people genuinely wish to help or are just too morally upright (I make it sound like a bad thing) or too apologetic ("Oh no I'd feel really really bad if I didn't help!") to turn you down.

Yet favours are such an instrumental part of life; it makes me wonder if my rabid enthusiasm in helping others out stems from a desire to rid myself of the debt I think I owe others.

Hmmm, there is probably no point in contemplating my own motivations. Oh, whatever! Time to add the final layer of varnish to my paper and go go go!

P.S. How am I supposed to respond when an oddball philo-type behaves unusually civil? I'm usually at a loss when such things happen, because to acknowledge their apology/encouragement would only accentuate the awkwardness at present and the meanness that transpired before.

P.S. 2 It seems like many people think D. Chua is a bee-eye-tee-see-hech too. Honestly, I don't think she is one. I don't normally think teachers are bitches. They're usually just bad teachers.