I am not an avid movie-goer.  When I go to theaters, it is almost always just for the social aspect of the experience.  Tonight, my friends are going to see Ghost Rider, so I am too.  I don’t watch that much television, either.  Until the new Battlestar Galactica and Heroes, the only show I ever watched all the way through was Survivor:  Australia.  My taste in books is limited to sci-fi and historical fiction, and I repetitively listen to the same music for years without feeling any need to branch out and listen to something new.  Except for what is demanded by classes, I only get on the internet to look at the same five sites every day (hcol, xanga, email, cybernations, and facebook).  As much of a gamer as I am, even that is limited to my old favorites.  I am still playing Diablo II:  Lords of Destruction religiously, and when someone mentions Final Fantasy, I think back to III.  Even my experiences in manga, my forte, are limited exclusively to my fiancée’s periodic purchases.

So what is an illiterate troglodyte like me doing as a teacher’s assistant in a class on pop culture criticism?  Why am I in a privileged position next to peers who are only two years younger than me and know more about the content of these media genres?  This is a legitimate question that Donna and I must ask, and that students and onlookers are surely curious about.

The answer boils down to one word, mechanics, which takes on two different forms:

As a TA, I obviously take on the mechanical roles that any class necessitates.  Somebody has to make sure that people are where they are supposed to be doing what they are supposed to do.  Somebody has to keep all that on record and be prepared to initiate correspondence when…anomalies in the system occur.  This class alone has three online written components per week.  Add to that a few more classes, a family, publishing deadlines, thesis reading, faculty committee meetings, and an associate directorship, and you start to get a picture of just how busy our very own professor can be.  Donna loves to interact with her students, as any teacher should, and places much more emphasis on student-teacher interface than most.  Mechanisms like hcol and Justin assist in moving the busy-work so that she—the real expert—can spend more time sharing that expertise and less updating spreadsheets.

I would like to think that my value goes beyond that, though.  There is a mechanical aspect of criticism that is easily overlooked in the throes of fanhood.  Most basically, there is writing quality to worry about.  And if I have any talent at all, it lies in editing:  tried and true since my first editing position on the Bradford Elementary School newspaper and perfected by UCA’s history department.  My primary role in past TA and PA positions has been paper workshopping, editing, and grading.

In addition, there are many mechanical aspects of media which necessitate concern in criticism.  Film, television, literature, music, comics, the internet, and all other media have specific and unique pathways through which ideas interact and move from mind to media to mind.   To say that, like McLuhan, my way of thinking inspires more interest in the media itself than its content would be a self-aggrandizing lie, but I am interested enough to dabble.  Donna herself has trained me in the art of seeing through film, I have had a little experience recording and mixing music, I have studied how comics work enough to make a thesis out of it, and working experience has given me a decent understanding of web design.

While an expert in none of these, I’ve probed past the surfaces enough to see comparisons and contrasts which I find enlightening, empowering, and worthy of sharing.  I am sure that I think I know more than I do—probably just enough to be dangerous—but that is what Honors is about:  sharing enough to make self-motivated learners out of students.  That is what I hope I can share in the class:  pointers in good composition, a Justinian augmentation of Donna’s appreciation of the magic behind the show, and an interest that goes beyond class-work.  I am not here to tell students what they should or shouldn’t like or show them what they have to appreciate in order to have good taste.  Sharing an MXC clip as my favorite bit of funny television should attest to that—I knew exactly what was coming.

In this class, I encountered an understanding of media and a fluency in writing that shockingly but pleasantly surprised me, but I don’t feel like I’ve exhausted my value as a resource quite yet…