conjunction junction, what's your function
During the second year of my illustrious - illustrious in this context translating to frequent hangovers, constant procrastination and the rediscovery of Lucky Charms - academic career at Holy Cross, I was faced with a decision. No, not deciding whether or not to go to Spain the following year, but rather deciding which of my remaining core requirements I would fill and which ones I would put off until senior year.
Deciding to ignore icky-icky science for as long as humanly possible, I decided that I would suck it up and get my philosophy requirement out of the way. I would eventually fill that remaining math/science requirement during my final semester with a riveting class commonly referred to as Physics for Dummies. The geology class, better known as "Rocks for Jocks," had - much to my chagrin - been cancelled the previous year with the retirement of its 964-year old professor.
Now I'm not exactly into the whole "what is life, why do we exist" spiel, so when perusing the catalogue for possible philosophy courses, I narrowed in on a class called Logic & Language. I figured it would be something like the logical study of language and therefore devoid of all that far-fetched philosophical bull-poo. I was half right, but that's a story for another day. Let's just put it this way. I never "did" office hours. Never! And yet I was in that professor's office at least 8 times that semester with a look on my face which I believe communicated to him what I was feeling: "What the FRIJOLES are you talking about?"
The professor of the class was German, and whenever he spoke I couldn't help but think of him as one of the jolly animatronic oompah boys in the Bavarian Christmas Village at the Yankee Candle Company in Massachusetts (exactly 2 people will know what I'm talking about). Sure, he'd often launch into a lesson speaking and scribbling on the board in his mother tongue. Sure, sometimes we had no idea what the guy was saying or how to spell any of the philosopher names that he spat out because his accent was so thick that everything just sounded like spoken marbles. However, when it came to conjunctions, the guy was a veritable fiend.
I have never in my life heard anybody else who so often integrates "ergo," "hitherto," "notwithstanding" and "thenceforth" into conversations- even when I'd run into him outside of class and he'd chat about his son's soccer (or "sog-haahhh") game. The pride and joy of his mental bank of conjunctions was, without a doubt, "insofar as." I quickly took to keeping a tally at the top my page of notes (I remember once counting over 65), something I've done since middle school whenever I've picked up on teachers' habits- an entertaining tactic to get through class without falling asleep. However, I often had to stop, as the class material had such an incredible knack for being boring that I would become delirious, nearly erupting into laughing fits every time he said it.
I often contemplated my professor's dominance of the conjunction; I couldn't help but picture the miniature red-cheeked version of my professor as a child in the Bavarian Alps reciting lists of conjunctions in knee socks and lederhosen, a beer stein in one hand and a fork loaded up with kraut in the other. Oh, and then Heidi and Peter showed up and they ran off to frolic with the goats.
