distraction

So, for my final paper for Young Adult Lit, I chose to write about The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Now that I sit here, trying to actually write the paper, it occurs to me that I should have picked any other book for my topic, because I like this one waaaay too much, and so when I go to look for something in it, I get distracted and start reading it again. And then I've wasted huge amounts of time reading when I'm supposed to be working.

I hate finals.

the perks of great books

I am currently reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower for my Intro to Young Adult Lit class. This is the second time I've read it. The first time, I devoured it whole in a single evening (right before my eye surgery, you may recall). I wanted to read it again shortly after that, but I was scared to, because I liked it so much that first time that I was worried another read-through would not have the same impression. I mean really, emotionally speaking, it hit me like a train. Books don't usually do that to me. So I was leery of reading it again.

Come to find out, I needn't have worried. I started it again last night, and it was just as good as I remembered. I had to make a concerted effort to actually put it down and go to sleep, because it was 4 AM and I was dead tired—if my eyes hadn't kept closing of their own accord, I probably would've read it all through in one sitting again. I'll almost certainly finish it tonight, or tomorrow at the latest, because once I pick it up again, I won't drop it until it's done. It's that good.

Of course, that's actually kind of a problem this time, because I have to write a critical response for class, meaning something a little more in-depth than just "OMG♥♥♥♥♥!!!!!" I'll probably end up reading it again before I have to write the response. And I can actually do that, because I'm almost three weeks ahead on the reading for that class. Now if only my other classes inspired such a work ethic.

Anyway. Go read this book. Seriously. Do it now.

consumption

I mentioned before that I am taking a class called "Alternatives to Consumerism." It is an interesting class, and I like it, I really do, but the portion of it we're in now is, well, not very helpful. We're doing a project about our personal spending habits, in which we're supposed to track all of the money we spend for one week. I guess this is supposed to be some enlightening experience in which we realize we spend more money than we think we do on things we don't really need or enjoy, and then decide what areas we want to cut back in, and if there are any areas in which we could increase spending to increase fulfillment. Which is all well and good, I suppose, but the thing is, I don't spend money that often. And very rarely on unnecessary things. And I don't feel like I'm skimping on anything, either.

My largest category of spending by far is classes (we had to figure out how much each class is costing us based on what we're paying/will have to pay back for tuition), which isn't really a variable—I want to continue attending this college, so that's what it's going to cost; I can't really cut back there. My next largest category is "necessary food," which is higher than I want it to be, but that's because I'm on the school's meal plan. Again, not really a whole lot I can realistically do about that (I certainly don't have time to shop and cook for myself, and from what I hear, getting off board is a pain in the ass anyway). My other three categories are "recreational food" ($25.65), "school supplies" ($2.44), and "other" ($31.39, twenty of which was the fee for the ballroom competition last weekend). Those all seem quite reasonable to me.

And not only am I satisfied with my spending, I had a pretty good idea of what most of those numbers were going to look like beforehand; this was not in any way an "enlightening" experience. Which, of course, leads to a problem: we're supposed to write a 3-4 page reflection paper on what we've learned from this project, but I haven't learned anything! I already knew what my spending habits were, and kept careful track of where my money was going, and was just fine with that. So what am I supposed to reflect on?

This week, I have gotten:

-back to Knox.
-my groove on.
-tipsy.
-sick as hell.
-better.
-some books.
-ahead in my reading.
-tired of the caf.
-started with my classes.
-thoroughly excited for this term.

It's been a week of ups and downs. It was really nice to get back Sunday, obviously. Home is really boring. And we had a dance party that night, which was fun and dance-y. And then Monday I was sick. At first I thought maybe it was a hangover, except I didn't drink enough to be hungover, let alone that hungover. As in, I woke up and puked first thing (incidentally, the first time I've puked since the sixth grade—it's something I generally just refuse to do), then spent the day in my bed and then in the hammock feeling like death, and then I kind of passed out on the way back to bed, which was scary. But then I woke up Tuesday and felt better. So that was good.

And now I've had each of my classes once each, and I'm pretty damn psyched for all of them. Mondays and Wednedsdays I have History and Structure of the English Language, which sounds hella nerdy, because it is, but it's exactly the kind of nerdy that appeals to me. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Young Adult Lit, which is my only 300-level class (the other two are 200s), and it's my favorite type of literature, and it's with Barbara Tannert-Smith, who is six different kinds of awesome. It's going to be like Children's Lit, except better, because we're reading Twilight, and I cannot wait for that because it's going to be excellently hilarious. And then on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have Alternatives to Consumerism, which is exactly the super-liberal hippie-type class that conservative, capitalist-types think of when they think of the liberal indoctrination going on at those damn liberal arts colleges, and I'm SO EXCITED FOR IT. It's a topic that is interesting to me, it has real-life applications, and it's graded pass/fail, so it's pretty low stress. Also, the prof seems like rather an awesome dude.

I think I'm going to buy a video game this afternoon. I'm in quite a good mood today. Later.

password lulz

When you reset your password on the Knox network, you get this message:

I love this place.

haunted by history

So, I spent basically my entire weekend researching and writing a ten page paper for my poli-sci class about the US's founding fathers and the separation of church and state. It was a pretty interesting topic, and the paper, while rushed, came out pretty decent, I'd say. But I think the extreme immersion in books about dead white men has addled my brain.

For example, I'm sitting here reading an article for a paper I'm writing in another class, and I'm kind of sleepy, so I'm dozing a little off and on, and I just had the most bizarre dream, where the ghost of James Madison was haunting my bathroom, except he had the appearance and personality of Napoleon. I don't really know that much about Napoleon, except that he was short and power-hungry, but I knew that's what he was like. But he was still James Madison. (I told you it was bizarre.)

Anyway, in my dream, I was taking a shower, and he (the ghost of James Madison) was standing outside the shower, and we were talking, but of course it was a dream and I found it totally normal that he was there, talking to me like my mom does when I'm showering at home and she comes in to brush her teeth or something. Anyway, we (the ghost and I) were arguing about something, I forget what, and then I went to get out of the shower and we were really arguing by this point, and he pushed me over, and I'm like, fuck that shit, so I said, "Begone, James Madison, you don't actually exist," (because of course he's a ghost). And he disappeared. And then I woke up.

midterms already

I have a midterm due/scheduled for this week in every one of my classes. IT'S ONLY THE FOURTH WEEK OF TERM! This is not acceptable, profs!

However, I'm actually not too terribly worried about it. Two of them are papers, one due tomorrow (well, today now, I guess), and the other due Friday, and the other is an actual exam, also on Friday. The papers are only five pages each, and the exam will apparently be short answer, so I can deal with that. I've got the paper due tomorrow (today) done already—in fact, I finished it at like, 4:00 this afternoon (woo, getting things done early!). And I've finished all my other assigned reading and daily work up through Tuesday. So actually, I'm way ahead for the time being. It's kind of a new and wonderful feeling. All I've got to do is write the other paper (poetry analysis—no big thing) and study for the Friday exam (I think I'm going to draw up outlines—it shouldn't be too arduous a task), plus any reading that gets assigned on Tuesday or Wednesday. If I can manage to stay on top of things and not get too cocky, this week might actually be kind of relaxing.

brain wiltage

So, I just sent off a bunch of postcards. I'm horrible at postcards. It's not meaningful communication—what can you write in a two-inch square that means anything? Seriously. But the people demand postcards, and so they shall have them. And so, looking for things to write on said postcards, I ended up putting something about my classes on most of them, saying things like, "My classes are really interesting, and I'm learning a lot!"

This is a lie.

Honstly, I'm almost starting to hate my classes here. They're So. Fricking. Dull. There's virtually no student-teacher interaction, beyond the occasional "¿Me entienden?" ("Do you understand?") from the professor. (This is less true in my grammar class, in which the prof at least tries to put a "conversation" section into each class, but honestly, she usually ends up dominating the conversation herself. I don't know if this is more her fault or ours.) And sometimes when they ask if we understand a word, even if we all nod and say "yes," they still feel the need to go on and explain it anyway.* For example, in art history the other day, the prof used the word "efímero," which means "ephemeral." It's the same word, and it has the exact same meaning; he even said (in Spanish), "I think this word is the same in English, yes?" and we all said yes, it was, we knew it, we understood, but he went on to explain thoroughly anyway, using examples, and then returned to explain it twice more before the class was over. I mean sure, it's probably not something that we use in everyday conversation, but we are college students here—sometimes I think they forget that. Just because our level of language isn't so great, doesn't mean we're stupid. And we said we understood; I promise, we're not going to lie about not getting something—we want to understand.

And we have no homework. Now, if you know me at all, you'll know that usually this is something I would celebrate. But we don't have class work either. We don't do anything. (Grammar class is again the exception here; we've had a ton of workbook pages and a handful of mini-essays there.) I really want to know where our grades are coming from, since we're not expected to talk in class, and we've had exactly one assignment each in Spanish novel and contemporary Spain, and absolutely nothing in art history (not that I get a grade for art history, since it's an audit, but still, I'd be interested to know). When I get back to Knox, I think I'm going to fail all my classes because I will have forgotten how to put forth effort in anything that's class-related.

Well, I have to go to class now. Art history, as luck would have it. Guess what? I bet we don't do anything. In fact, we probably won't even talk about art. (We don't always. It's kind of ridiculous.) *sigh*

_{*The art history prof is by far the worst in this category, but the others do it too sometimes.}

prepositions

The following is a sample, and I'd call it a fairly representative one, of a single sentence from an article I have to read this week as homework for my film class.

"Endlessly interactive, his films can only be understood in terms of their adaptation of the generic conventions of the documentary to the tradition of black gay and lesbian self-representation of which they are a part."

Oh my god. It's like one of those Russian dolls, except with prepositions.

minor successes

I have little of interest to report; however, I must gloat a bit, because I got back both my midterms yesterday, and I got an 'A' on one and 100% on the other—w00t w00t!

I am tentatively hopeful for the rest of the term.

More on John Ashcroft

We're in the national news again!

As I mentioned before, John Ashcroft came and spoke at my school Tuesday night. (For the coverage in the school newspaper, click here—and check out the videos!) As might be expected with such a controversial conservative figure at a decidedly liberal institution, not everyone was happy about that, and there were a number of protests. In the Discourse section of today's issue of TKS, there were a number of responses to the protests, and while some were positive, others were decidedly less so, including one column entitled, "You embarrass me and yourself." Some of my fellow students have been called "rude," "immature," "disgraceful," and even "despicable," and I must say, I really don't think that's correct, necessary, or helpful. Now, I don't know that I have my thoughts very well organized at this point, but I'd like to put them out there, so I hope you'll bear with me.

Some people are upset because, they say, most of the Knox attendees had their minds made up about Ashcroft beforehand and went in closed-minded, with the intent only to ignore and mock him. To the second part of this, I can say that the people I went with, at least, had no such intentions; sure, we all went in not liking him, and came out not liking him, but we only wanted to see what he was going to say. And we got to do that. The protestors didn't stop that from happening. He wasn't there to change anyone's mind, and if you think otherwise, you really are deluding yourself.

Furthermore, I want to point out that if Knox had its mind made up about Ashcroft beforehand, he almost certainly had his mind made up about us. That "skepticism vs. cynicism" comment was certainly not off the cuff. Besides that, he knew the atmosphere of the campus coming in, and he was in full deflect mode; he didn't give a single straight answer during the entire Q&A, even to questions that weren't directly confrontational.

And speaking of questions, if you want to accuse students of not being prepared to listen, you must also realize that Ashcroft was not prepared to answer. He has proven himself many times over, in the media and elsewhere, to be completely unwilling to answer questions about the issues raised by the protestors and questioners. The point of these questions is not to get an actual answer, because we all know that won't happen. The point is to underscore the fact that there are differing opinions and to start a conversation about them, not in the context of the speaker—as I have said, that is not a practicable venue for such discussion—but later on, discussing things with friends in smaller groups afterward. Unless I read it wrong, this was, in fact, the goal in bringing Ashcroft to campus.

It has been pointed out that Ashcroft himself was not entirely blameless, as he ignored questions, turned them around, and even attacked some of the questioners; it has also been noted that his responses only became hostile because the questioning had grown hostile. I'd like to back it up a step further and point out that the questioning did not start out that way; it became hostile because Ashcroft was very blatantly not answering the questions posed. As I've said, this is to be expected from political speakers; however, his twisting of words, nitpicking at irrelevant details, and especially the wilful misunderstanding of questions seemed to me to be particularly blatant, even for a politician. I would expect an educated man addressing a college audience to have some modicum of respect for our intelligence; I didn't even ask a question, and I still felt insulted.

I'm not saying absolutely everything was perfect, or even acceptable—the gentleman who demanded to know how Ashcroft sleeps at night and whether or not he has a soul was out of line. I think we can all agree on that. But questions of that nature were not the majority. No other questioner made blatant personal insults as a part of a question; in fact, aside from a few poorly organized ramblers, I found the level of the questions to be quite acceptable, and often insightful and to-the-point.

In his piece, For Shame, TKS's perennial conservative columnist Chris Berger wrote, "I know students who want to transfer because of [the protests], and one professor contemplating not teaching next year if apologies are not issued." To people holding this opinion, I can only say, please go. People have the right to express their opinions; Mr. Ashcroft completed his speech without a substantial breakdown of order, people got to hear what he had to say, and hey, nobody got "tased." With the possible exception of Alex Enyart (the "do-you-have-a-soul" guy), no one but no one needs to apologize for stating their opinions. If this kind of dissent is enough to sour your opinion of the entire school, you're not the kind of people I think of when I think of Knox.

I highly encourage everyone to at least glance over all the articles in the Discourse section linked above, particularly the Thoughts from the Embers and Graham's column, "Regarding Politeness" (Graham was the student whose question about LGBT rights was quite blatantly dismissed).

And to Devin Day, Chris Berger, Melinda Jones, Lauren Peretz, and anyone else who's feeling embarrassed over this, you have every right to feel that way if you want to. But please speak for yourselves—I am most certainly not ashamed of my peers, and if you are, then I have to wonder, for whom?

I have seen the face of evil...

...and it is a wrinkly politician.

Y'know, I probably wouldn't have said it aloud like the guy did in the Q & A, but I do legitimately wonder how John Ashcroft sleeps at night.

fun with silent film

So, I'm taking Black Images in American Film this term, and for our first movie, we watched Birth of a Nation. No surprise there. It was technically impressive and horribly racist and on and on, and plenty of people have commented extensively on it and so I don't feel the need to do so here, especially since I'll probably end up having to write about it later anyway. But I do have to say that the music was bizarre. Like, to the point of being highly distracting. It almost never seemed to sync up with the onscreen action, and often seemed in fact to contradict the mood of the scene.

Now, my understanding is that generally with silent films, they would have a pianist or organist or some sort of live music, so I wonder if that's part of the issue—the film didn't have a score of its own, so they just slapped on some music for the video release and went with it. This is the theory that makes the most sense to me, anyway. However it came about, the end result is that it makes the film difficult to watch (not that it wasn't already, given the content), often confusing, and sometimes inappropriately hilarious.

Suffice it to say, I'm really glad they came up with talkies.

reason #563 why procrastination is bad

Good god, my life just flashed before my eyes. So, for Fiction Workshop, we had a take-home final, as I believe I've mentioned. Now, usually I like to turn these things in as soon as I finish them, but in this case, I finished it at about 3 AM on Thursday morning, and Old Main, sadly, is not open at that hour. So I saved it to my flash drive and wrote myself a note to turn it in when I got up later that morning.

Well, I forgot. All day I forgot. No big, I told myself, because it wasn't due until Saturday afternoon. I'd be going over to Seymour for meals on Friday, so I could print it off and turn it in then, no problem.

Except I forgot again. So Friday night, I wrote on my white board, "FICTION FINAL" in big blue letters to remind me to turn it in before I left in the morning.

And that's where it all gets hazy. I know I went over to breakfast Saturday morning, because that's where my Dad met me, in the caf. I know I didn't turn it in right after breakfast, because my dad had the car and so he drove me back to the house. What I can't remember is if I turned it in before Dad got there, i.e. before I went to breakfast, or possibly after we packed my stuff in the car, or not at all.

I hadn't thought about it at all since then, until just now when suddenly, drowsing on the couch while half-heartedly surfing the web, I was jerked from the brink of sleep by the thought, "Oh my god, I didn't turn in my final!" I racked my brains (and did so again just now trying to figure out whether that's "rack" or "wrack"—Dictionary.com says it's "rack"—but I digress), but I couldn't for the life of me remember. And I couldn't email an extra copy to my professor just in case, because he doesn't use email! Honestly!

So in a panic, I called him up and told him what was going on and asked if he had a copy of it, and he said he wasn't at his desk just now but he told me to email it to to another professor, who could then pass it on to him.

*sigh* So I guess I've learned my lesson.

Gah, my hands are still shaking.

Awkwardsauce!

So, there has been a lot of hoo-ha and to-do about my math class this term. It's supposed to be the "easy" math credit for kids who can't do math (i.e. me). Except that, well, it wasn't.

There were many factors leading to this conclusion, but a lot of it I'm sure has to do with the fact that our professor has never taught this class before. I'm guessing it's probably a lot different teaching math to kids who suck at math than it is teaching math majors, or at least people who are somewhat mathematically inclined.

Anyway, the culmination of this all has been a series of angry emails circulated among members of the class, a meeting between some students and the head of the math department, and a petition to have the last chapter removed from the final exam.

I've mostly stayed out of this, because honestly, I'm not sure where I stand on the issue. I mean yes, the class has been a lot harder than it should have been; I'm definitely in agreement with that. Hell, the homework made me cry at least three times, and anybody who knows me will tell you that's quite a feat. And there have been certainly significant problems with the professor's teaching and the way the class has progressed.

But I also realize that any professor teaching a class for the first time ever is going to have some problems. Case in point: my AP US History class at Canterbury—that was very nearly a disaster. But I know that in subsequent years, the class has improved greatly as the teacher has gotten more comfortable teaching it. I'm fairly certain that this is a similar situation, and while it sucks that we have to be the "guinea pigs" in this class, well, that happens. Somebody has to do it; that's the way things work.

And besides all that, I knew the professor a little bit even before I took the class, so I know he's a nice guy and he's really not out to get us.

Which is all leading up to this afternoon. The professor asked if I would come by sometime during his office hours to talk, he didn't say about what. So I go, thinking it's probably going to be something about my last midterm, which I summarily bombed. Well, I get there, and first thing, he apologizes for putting me in this awkward situation and says I don't have to answer if I don't want to, but (to severely paraphrase the question) could I possibly shed some light on what everybody's so pissed off about? And the whole time, I can just hear the real question in his voice, "I'm a nice guy, and I'm trying so hard—why do they hate me?"

Dear god, what am I supposed to do with that?!

So I mumbled some about what I could think of that people were complaining about, about how chapter 13 wasn't covered enough to be on the final, and how class was confusing for various reasons, and blah blah blah. And I kind of wanted to show him the emails, because there were some really valid complaints in there that I thought he should know about, but there were people's names on there, and then wouldn't I be some kind of narc or something? I mean, I know at least most of this will probably come out in the course evals, but I know that when I fill those out, at least, it tends to get mashed down into just one or two sentences, and I feel like people would all put down the same one or two points and not flesh out the problems in their entirety like they did in these emails.

So I debated back and forth for awhile, and finally I copied a couple of the more informative emails and forwarded them to him sans names, so hopefully that will give him a clearer idea of what's going on. I hope that was the right decision.

transgression

So, we're in the midst of finals week already, and I've just finished half of my exam for Fiction Workshop. It's a two question take-home, and really not bad as exams go; I'll do the other half tomorrow and I should still have plenty of time to study for my other two exams. But anyway, the question I've just finished was about the role of transgressive behavior in two of the books we've read for class, and that got me wondering about some things.

The first part I wrote was about Trash, a collection of short stories by Dorothy Allison, which is, in short, probably not a book you'd want to discuss with your grandmother. (At least, not mine.) I made the point in my response that the transgressive elements in the book are not gratuitous displays of "vulgarity for vulgarity's sake" because they help to emphasize the underlying themes of love and betrayal and all that jazz, but I'm not sure if I entirely agree with that. I mean, to some extent, I do, and don't get me wrong, I really loved the book. But I definitely felt like at least a few times when I was reading the book,there were places where it seemed like yes, some parts were just a bit over the top, unnecessary to any thematic development, put in simply because the author was on a roll with the swearing and explicit scenes and couldn't quite figure out where to stop. I didn't discuss these in my paper, because a) I couldn't find any examples offhand, b) it's already the required length, and c) I'm tired.

But anyway, this brought me back to wondering about the second story I turned in today as part of my final portfolio for that class. It's certainly the most R-rated thing I've ever written, complete with my first use of the f-bomb in something I'm turning in for class, and its very own sex scene (le gasp!). I was back and forth on whether or not to put that particular scene in for a long time; it was part of the story in my head, but I feel like I could argue equally as well for its exclusion as for its inclusion on a thematic basis. I argued it over in my head so much that any instincts I may have initially had on the matter were long since trampled under reasoning and justifications in both directions. And I never got up the guts to turn in any draft with that scene in it for critique in class, so I didn't have anybody else's input on whether it should stay or go either. I ended up leaving it in, because as I said, it was part of the story in my head, and I had taken some time in writing it too, so I felt like there must have been something there, at least to begin with. But now I'm wondering where exactly is the line between honest storytelling and gratuitous "honesty" in this area? And how does one know the difference? I'm afraid my critical eye is still a little foggy with self-censorship. But I'm definitely better about that than I was at the beginning of term, so that's something, anyway.

Finally!

Words I never thought I'd see in a math book:

"The advantage of Barrow’s method is that the algebra tends to be much easier, but the disadvantage is that why Barrow’s method works is not clear."

This is the way math is for me basically all the time. I don't know why shit works; the teacher tells me it does, so I do it. It's nice once in awhile to find out that smart math people don't have all the answers either.

maaaaath

I took a math test today. Well, yesterday now, I suppose. I don't want to make any overconfident assumptions, but, well, I'm pretty sure I kicked its ass. It's amazing what an hour's cramming can do. I'm actually eager to get the thing back—I haven't felt so accomplished in a long time.

That said, I only slept three hours last night, and now it's 5 AM and I'm still awake again. I don't have any Thursday classes, but I do need to get some things done, and I will have to be awake for Friday, which means I have to sleep Thursday night. This could be a problem.

Ah well. After Friday, it's the weekend again. I can make it 'til then.