What the tutor said about Rachel's picture of Colin.

I went over to the Fine Art department to look for Rachel. She was my friend, and she was a girl. Maybe she could advise me on the Carol situation.
She wasn’t there, but I did meet Jennifer. She was eating a big plate of chips in the college canteen.
“Hi Michael. Do you want a chip?”
“No thanks. You haven’t seen Rachel, have you?”
“Yeah. We were at an assessment this morning and the tutor really slagged off her work.”
“Really. What did he say?”
“He said her work was parochial, naive, simplistic, and poorly executed, showing no regard for the dialectic concerns of modern perceptions of the purposes of artistic expression  in an attempt to convey an inner truth within society.”
“He said that about her picture of Colin?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Well, that seems a bit harsh. Where is she now? I wanted to ask her about something.”
“I think she’s in the pub.”
I went around the corner and into the pub. Rachel was sitting there with a couple of crusties.
“Hi, Rachel. Are you all right?”
“Rachel’s a bit upset. Our tutor didn’t exactly like her work.”
This was John. The guy who just picked things up off the street and glued them together.
I looked at him and thought, Jesus, he’s such a crusty. Dreadlocks, army surplus clothes, big para boots. Then I looked at the other one, Phil. Dreadlocks, army surplus, big para boots. He made sculptures out of organic materials in an attempt to convey the fragility of our ecosystem. Or something.
Then I sort of looked at myself. Dreadlocks, army surplus, big para boots. But I wasn’t a crusty. Crusties are dirty smelly people. I had a shower every morning.
“I’m going home to Wales. I hate it here!” said Rachel.
“No. Don’t do that. It will be all right in a week or two once you settle in. Who cares about that tutor and his dialectics? What does he know anyway? Dialectics isn’t even a word.”
“It is, actually,” said John.
“Is it?”
“I knew I was never good enough to go to university. This was the worst decision of my life!”
I realised then that Rachel was my best friend and I had to help her. We had both recently made the worst decisions in our lives. We had to stick together.
“Would you like a drink?”
“Yes.”
“What would you like?”
“A big one.”
Phil and John left after a while. They probably had to go to a lecture about dialectics or something.
“I’m just going to pack my things and go home.”
“Look. You’ll be all right.”
“I miss my mum and my dad, and my brother. And Colin.”
“It’s hard moving away from home at first. And some pompous prick sounding off about your work not being any good probably doesn’t help. Why don’t you try sticking it out for a while? Things will get better.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yeah. You’ve already made lots of friends. That’s not an easy thing to do. And anyway, we’re supposed to be going to Planet X on Friday.”
“That’s right! I’d forgotten about that.”
“Well then. Promise me you will stay at least until Friday. Then you can see what you feel like doing after that.”