why even you would love my grammar class.

If you opened my notebook and turned to the third section, you would be very entertained.

Between class notes on how to parse sentences (yes, that is as nerdy as it sounds) you would find all sorts of phrases in the margins. The first day its, "jessica sorenson. In cursive: Jessica Sorenson. In block letters: JESSICA." Then the margins are blank for a few days. Then, as I start to get lost in the subject material, its WTF IS GOING ON. And several more days later, I write at the top of the margin "Manning Quotes." And the next day it's "MORE Manning Quotes:)." And pretty soon I've almost stopped taking notes altogether so I can fill up the left side of the page now designated More Manning Margin Maxims.

Here is why I have started to quote this teacher in my notebook:

1. He has the same voice of the narrator of A Christmas Story. Think "Adult Ralphie." And if that's not enough reason to love a person, just you wait. There's more.

2. This teacher says the most awesome things.

He frequently compares our learning to "parse sentences" to Jedi training. For instance,

"This here is far more information than you need to know about parsing sentences. I mean, you have your Youngling parses, then you have your Patowan (spelling?) parses, and then you have your Jedi parses. This is a Jedi parse, but you only need to know the Youngling parse for this class."

He compares modifiers to Star Trek, Reese's peanut butter cups, and Tofu. And I'm not kidding.

"Some of us have a higher tofu threshold than others.

Mine is set quite low, actually."

In mock argument with himself:

"'You got peanut butter on my chocolate.'

--'Well, you got chocolate on my peanut butter!'

... Either way, it's still a Reese's."

?

"This may look like a modifier, but it's not. It's modifoid. You know, like Spock. He's not human, he's humanoid. I mean, he's almost human but he's not--he's a hairless bi-ped."

You heard me. Hairless. Bi-ped. Get your popcorn ready, we're going to ELANG 322! Now I come to class excited to learn about Star Trek and how grammar can be compared to popular chocolate candy and tofu. Then he ends class with something like,

"And next week we will back back to the mechanics of punctuation with a vengeance."

Did I mention today he was wearing a tie reminiscent of the 80's with a double-helix on it? Awesome.