Loung Ung and other unrelated obs

Do you know who Loung Ung is? In my world lit class, we had to read her book,"First They Killed My Father." This book happened to be chosen as our school's "book in common," so all related English/Comp classes at my college were reading it as well.

So I read the book last month and this woman immediately became my new hero.

I went to her presentation tonight at my school, it was moving, but disappointing for me because it was so crowded (and I know that at least 60% of the kids there were solely there for the extra credit offered by their instructors for going) and I was seated kinda far away. I was thinking this would be a fairly intimate setting, hoping to get a picture with her, etc. But no. And the line for the book signing was a good 20 minutes long, even as the teenaged-student-coordinators rushed us through...telling us to have our books open to the proper page for signing in order to expedite the process, blah blah blah. And of course, I totally think that a good percentage of the kids getting the signatures just want to sell it or something.

Have I mentioned how concrete 18 and 19 year olds are? So many of them simply cannot understand nuance. I know their brains are still undeveloped, I get that, I have been there. But there have got to be sharper teenagers out there somewhere ... just not in my class at my local community college. My world lit class happens to be my only day class, and compared to my night classes, where the average age is probably 25, is like "night and day!" I literally drop my jaw at some of the stupid things that the kids in my lit class say. Of course, I sit in the front, next to an counter-culture 25 year old single mom who is quite smart, if overly analytical and argumentative, she is even less tolerant of the pure stupidity than I, she rolls her eyes at me and glares when the dumb people start in on their nonsense. My poor professor too, geez. Every time we have a writing assignment, she spends half the next class explaining how she graded and why/how to make papers of collegiate level. (obvs, she is not referring to my papers! and don't judge my writing by my blogging, I don't edit these things) She shouldn't have to be telling us how she expects a college level essay to be written, pre-reqs for the class include Composition I and II. When the prof gives examples from student essays that were C or below, I quite honestly don't know how these people graduated from HIGH SCHOOL! And I actually have to make an effort to keep quiet in class because I have noticed that the only people who have really anything to contribute to the literary analysis are me and the 25 y/o girl. So I shut up sometimes to see what other people might have to say and well ... crickets! Again, my poor professor!

By the way, I now have a major crush on men 200-300 years in the grave. Rousseau and Baudelaire. Can I just say....twisted but sexy!

Anyway, Loung Ung. I don't know if I was thinking I would show up at this presentation and be her new BFF or what. I barely got to say, "Thanks for writing this..." at the book signing. Oh well. Very inspiring woman. Very good book. Easy to read too, it's not too long and it's one of those you don't want to put down because it's so heartbreaking, even more so since I am reading it as a mother. I related to it more than I would of a story of say, genocides in less developed nations, because Ung was a child living a nice city life in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge came into power and evacuated everyone. She's my generation too, experienced the 1980's in America, so that helps with relatability as well. I guess I will just have to be her vicarious best friend she doesn't know about, that's how well one feels they know her after reading that book. And the presentation tonight demonstrated her personality as an adult and it was truly just what I expected. Very very cool, inspirational, humble, human, real, bold.

I will keep her in mind while I am researching Armenian Genocide information for an upcoming group research project (yes, the 25 y/o is one of my partners, TG).