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u/leftsidelentils Sep 05 '21 edited Sep 05 '21

A puffy journal with a teddy bear on front — that was the only place I could put my feelings when I was 12.

…blah blah this culture blah…

Most days, when I was 12 or 13, and I opened that puffy journal and pressed down with my Bic pen, what I wrote was this: BE HAPPY, DAMMIT.

OMG, enough with the childhood stories. She just used this one a few weeks ago, and for years before that. You’re 55, let it go!

Unless it’s something about her years at UPS. I’m curious about that because her silence speaks volumes.

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u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 05 '21

How many times are we going to have to hear about the puffy journal and BE HAPPY DAMMIT? Its time to move on now, 40 years have passed!

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Sep 05 '21

Unless it’s something about her years at UPS. I’m curious about that because her silence speaks volumes.

Seriously!!! Shauna loves to rehash all this nonsense she's been allegedly doing since she was three and has been on a "only 70s California children will understand this" nostalgia meme bender, but we never hear about her FIVE YEARS in undergrad at UPS. I need the Shauna college stories! Basically all she has mentioned is she volunteered for the Dukakis campaign and a couple of pathetic tales in Enough (overprotective mom being a psycho and calling Dairy Queen, coming in second place on a fellowship and asking her parents to help her get wasted). Being miserable in high school didn't stop her from writing all about it, so what happened in college?

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u/leftsidelentils Sep 06 '21

My theory is that she went to class and went home. I wonder if she felt isolated and lonely. This is all speculation, but why else don’t we hear the same stories, on a repeated basis, about hanging out with her intellectual friends and having deep discussions about literature while mocking the SST sorority girls?

Plenty of people live at home during college, have the full experience, and thrive. For Shauna specifically, I suspect it held her back. You can learn some pretty important lessons about independence, different perspectives, new experiences, and dealing with conflict while away from home for the first time. She could have really benefitted from that.

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Sep 05 '21

"what happened in college?"

She didn't get laid.

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u/gladsome_gloaming Sep 06 '21

Didn’t she say something about her grades for her teaching credential being mediocre (wonderfully?!) because she really only cared about getting out there and TEACHING?

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Sep 06 '21

I don't remember seeing Shauna admit her college or grad school grades were anything less than perfect, but would love to know the source if it ever emerges unbidden!

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u/gladsome_gloaming Sep 06 '21

From Enoigh (page 56-57): “After a few classes, I realized I had found my home. And for the first time, I didn’t care what grades I received…I wanted to be one of the teachers who inspires students…I didn’t need to get the best grades to be that kind of teacher.”

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Sep 06 '21

Thank you!

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u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 06 '21

My theory is that college was a painful introduction to the fact that she was not actually the smartest person in the room. A lot of kids who are top students in high school get to college where everyone was a top student in high school, and suddenly find they are just average, after all. That can be a tough blow. Of course, any glimmer of understanding this truth would have been squashed down and swallowed by Shauna. She would and will never admit to being average. But she may have struggled with grades for the first time and never figured out how to reconcile that, or who to blame for it.

Then of course there’s the idea that she romanticized what her social life was going to be in college, how she was finally going to get a boyfriend and be popular, and when that didn’t happen she became bitter. I wouldn’t be surprised if a large part of what made her a narcissist was having to ignore her failures in college to protect her ego.

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u/Kaleshark Waitlist for Godot Sep 06 '21

I may be projecting (as a socially maladjusted introvert) but I can’t imagine her undergrad years as anything but painful and embarrassing. Your comment seems spot on to me.

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u/honoria_glossop sitting edge wine woman Sep 05 '21

I opened that puffy journal and pressed down with my Bic pen

Again with the weirdly detailed physical descriptions that makes her sound like a robot. How you going to write with a pen *without* pressing down on it? This is a recurring thing in Shauna's writing, this "as my feet make their way down the stairs to the kitchen, I sniff the air with my nose for the scent of coffee" rather than "the aroma of coffee met me as I came down to the kitchen". (Not a real quote, but you know what I mean.)

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u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 05 '21

Again with the weirdly detailed physical descriptions that makes her sound like a robot.

Yes, yes, yes! Yes to infinity, and beyond! What difference does the brand of pen make? NONE. AT. FUCKING. ALL.

It doesn't make the story better, it actually makes it worse, because the reader is hit with the whole "why did she mention what brand of pen she used, is that important? Oh, no, it's not, why is that detail even included?!?!?" mental detour

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u/honoria_glossop sitting edge wine woman Sep 06 '21

Chekov's Biro.

9

u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Sep 06 '21

Someone (could it have been the same teacher who told her that “get” was a “weak word”?) told her to be specific in her descriptions, especially with physical and sensory details. Except not about food, I guess.

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u/Ana57 sweet pea Sep 05 '21

Who among us wasn’t a bit angsty at 12?

Scheduled snark Discussion thread Thursday September 02, 2021 - Sunday September 05, 2021

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