Praise Song For the YMCA

I have just returned to Hungary from my fourth semester at APU in Thailand. Since we will be graduating in the summer we had a short ceremony at a banquet before we left. One of my classmates wrote this poem... You might not get some of the inside jokes... but you also might still enjoy it! (Warning: heavy layer of sarcasm is present in some sections...)



Praise song for the YMCA.

Each day we go about our studies, sitting next to each other, comprehending the meaning or not, raising our hand only to forget what we were going to say. All about us is theory. All about us is theory and structures, concepts and practice, up to our runny noses in citations. Someone is drinking a pot of coffee, staring blankly at an LCD, analyzing the same word for five hours, correcting a comma splice in need of correcting. Someone somewhere is bawling, and then checks on the baby in the other room.

Someone is trying to conduct action research somewhere with a ticket stub, two Magenta-colored crayons, used bubble gum, a coat hanger, a rotary phone, a Gumbee action figure, epoxy, an empty Dayquil bottle, elaborate hand gestures, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, a broken tape recorder, all without electricity.

A mother cares for her young olive tree in her husband’s welcome shade. A Thai dentist gives a man bionic teeth.

A couple is expecting their first in Chiang Mai. Teachers from Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, and South Korea are asked how long they’ve been with ELIC.

We confuse each other with words, words slow and simple, loud and clear, words accented and standard, and then Dr. Wong asks John to repeat himself again.

We cross streets with red trucks at crosswalks on busy roads, saying “I need to cross to the other side of the road,” and the cars stop; we cross the road without sustaining serious bodily injury.

We need to eat food that is safe; we stagger towards a bathroom which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, Mary is Wong if not also Rich. Remember the final due date, typing your e-mail tactfully, seasoning your words with MSG, citing your progress with enumerated lists, asking for mercy and forgiveness.

Praise song for memory lapses, praise song for the YMCA. Praise song for indecipherable writing, the notes we took during the afternoon yesterday.

Some live by the APA.

Others use it differently, or not at all, but consistently.

What if the mightiest word is copy, copy the source material, copyright, copy-it-right. Copy that widening pool of TESOL Quarterlys. Copy with no need to read them again.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be copied, any sentence paraphrased.

On the brink of plagiarism, on the cusp of academic suspension—praise song for extensions.