Chapter 4: Trouble Ahead?

I was beginning to dread Monday mornings. My stomach would churn with acid, as my brain convinced it that this would be the day of its last home-cooked meal. By 9:45 I was racked with trepidation, expecting a hand on my shoulder and looking up to find the burly vice-principal staring at me. Or even worse, looking at a pair of handcuffs being dangled in front of me by a police officer.

Instead, there was only the noise of desks scraping on the floor, taunts from one side of the room to another, and the slow shuffle of asses into seats in the standard fashion of teenagers in high schools the world over. When the bell rang to mark the start of class, she appeared at the front of the room, clutching a sheaf of papers in her hand.

She paused for a moment, waiting for the din to fade away, then bid us good morning and began to walk around the room in her usual way. As she started to talk about our papers her eyes looked at me for a brief second, then moved on to someone else in the room. I couldn't discern anything in her look, so I sat back in my chair and followed her with my eyes as she moved around the room, listening to her speaking.

"Well, as I predicted, my weekend was nowhere near as interesting as it has been. Most of your papers were, to be honest, as dull as dishwater." She waited for the laughter to die down, then continued. "And actually, that's a good thing. Technical writing is supposed to convey information, not strive to be the latest bestseller. There were a few of you who thought it should be that way, and I had to note that dialogue in a technical paper is inappropriate, as is swearing, nudity, comedy, or anything else that is not simply a statement of fact, or a description of the next step in a procedure that needs to be followed to accomplish a task."

She paused for a second. "Actually, in all honesty, I should point out that nudity can be a requirement, especially if one is describing something in the surface anatomy of the body, or describing a medical procedure. One of you actually did that quite successfully, in a surprising way."

Someone raised a hand and asked, "But how could you deal with something like that without getting crude?"

"Well, for example, what would you think is being described by the medical definition: 'the juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction'?"

"I don't know, but somehow it sounds hot."

Mrs. Ball had to wait for the laughter to die down again. "All right, enough. It could be considered as hot, I suppose, depending on the context. In fact, that is the medical definition of a kiss ... nothing more than that."

"And someone used that in their paper?"

"No, not that exact phrase. I remembered that one from a technical writing seminar I took a few years ago. The instructor used it as an example." Her gaze was moving from person to person as she walked around the room, and this time it did come to rest on my face for a fraction longer. "The paper I'm thinking of didn't describe a medical procedure, but it did involve contact with bare skin, so some nudity was required." I thought I saw a slight flush on her face as she finished speaking and licked her lips.

From another corner of the room came a new question. "So this person's paper had nudity in it?"

"Well, I suppose it could have. It did have bare skin."

"Doing what?"

I was now very nervous, because I had no idea what she might say. "Well, wouldn't bare skin be involved if you were going to tattoo someone?" I let my breath out, even though I had no idea that I had been holding it.

She held her hand up, and asked rhetorically, "Wouldn't you say that my hand is naked, since you can easily see all of the skin on it?" She looked around at various faces. "After all, while we tend to regard nudity as involving what Monty Python used to call 'the naughty bits', the reality is that any exposure of skin can be considered as nudity to some degree. In some cultures, even exposing the face is considered as going against religious or legal restrictions." She looked around the room again, then concluded with, "I am throwing out those examples to show you that you shouldn't automatically be misled by stereotypes or erroneous approaches to situations."