The Shopgirl Mystery

Am I a memorable student? I'm surely not a diligent one. Not that I'm lazy either - in terms of diligence and studying hard, I'm probably around average (there's nothing average about my grades and IQ, though...hahaha! Just kidding). I have had, however, a few memorable professors, all of them Lit teachers: Dr. Carey for Modern Lit (very motherly, she's amazing!) and Mr. Borra, Renaissance Lit (think Robin Williams in "The Dead Poets' Society"). I was mulling over this while I was trying to recall "Shopgirl", a novel I had read a few years ago when Mr. Borra lent it to me towards the end of the semester. He was giving back papers we had written, and when I came to his desk to get mine he also handed me the book. I've always wondered why he lent me that particular title, but have always been too shy to ask him. Thing is, I wouldn't have picked out that book myself if I had seen it in a bookstore, but I think Mr. Borra might have felt that I would've been able to relate to it in some way, which until now is a mystery to me. I've some theories about it but have no way of being able to test/prove them. Anyhow, I plan to buy my own copy of the book and read it again over the summer - maybe then I'll be able to figure it out. I would however very much love to hear what Mr. Borra himself has to say about it, but I'll probably always be too shy to ask and thus will never be able to do so. Who knows, maybe it didn't mean anything at all. In any case, it got me thinking about how much I miss Lit classes...they're my absolute favorites. Especially Mr. Borra's - I remember the first class we had with him, and he mentioned this really cool edition of Love in the Time of Cholera, printed in this special type of paper. Coincidentally, I had a copy of that particular edition, and I knew from then on, for some reason, that his class was going to be one that I would greatly enjoy. I was right.