Monday, April 7, 2008
The blog to which I never post
Eh, but I'm busy at work and there isn't much else going on. Trying to keep the house clean (my mom and dad kindly provided attic-to-floor cleaning a few weeks ago), getting consumed badly enough by sand gnats that my arms and legs resemble a chicken pox victim's, writing, not reading enough, and totally wishing Dexter existed in real life and I could date him. And there you have it.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Random update
In case anyone is reading this...
1. Had to drop my class. No time. I am planning to take it online next quarter instead.
2. How do you house-train a puppy who likes to be outside and play outside but does not like to relieve himself outside and will wait to go potty until you take him back inside?
3. Is Britney really bipolar? I think she's a spoiled brat with narcissistic personality disorder. I am writing an essay about this, sort of--more about where the line is between what you can and can't help, where mental illness gives way to personal responsibility and vice versa.
4. Speaking of bipolar, I am reading the last Tim Dorsey novel that's out in paperback, Hurricane Punch. What am I gonna do for the next 11 months as I wait for Atomic Lobster to cycle through the hardcover phase? No Serge A. Storms fix? I was trying to pace myself, but the books are way too addictive for that. If I had half as much fun as Serge when I quit taking my meds, I'd never swallow a pill again.
5. Occasionally, in trying to catch up on reading the books I've stockpiled for years, I come across one that is delightful and surprising and makes me realize there's an entire ouevre of work by this author that I haven't even tapped. The Certificate by Isaac Bashevis Singer is the most recent of these. How have I never read him before?
1. Had to drop my class. No time. I am planning to take it online next quarter instead.
2. How do you house-train a puppy who likes to be outside and play outside but does not like to relieve himself outside and will wait to go potty until you take him back inside?
3. Is Britney really bipolar? I think she's a spoiled brat with narcissistic personality disorder. I am writing an essay about this, sort of--more about where the line is between what you can and can't help, where mental illness gives way to personal responsibility and vice versa.
4. Speaking of bipolar, I am reading the last Tim Dorsey novel that's out in paperback, Hurricane Punch. What am I gonna do for the next 11 months as I wait for Atomic Lobster to cycle through the hardcover phase? No Serge A. Storms fix? I was trying to pace myself, but the books are way too addictive for that. If I had half as much fun as Serge when I quit taking my meds, I'd never swallow a pill again.
5. Occasionally, in trying to catch up on reading the books I've stockpiled for years, I come across one that is delightful and surprising and makes me realize there's an entire ouevre of work by this author that I haven't even tapped. The Certificate by Isaac Bashevis Singer is the most recent of these. How have I never read him before?
Monday, January 14, 2008
Back to school
In all my visions of someday returning to school for a Ph.D., the idea that I would find myself in a first-year intro class to fulfill a basic prereq never, ever crossed my mind. Yet now I am taking Survey of Western Art I with a bunch of kids who are in their second term of college.
Having always loathed the "nontraditional" (read: older) students who tried to buddy up to the prof and dominated every class discussion, I am determined not to be that person. At the same time, I understand that person a little better now. When school is something you choose and not just the taken-for-granted next step after high school, maybe you view even your basic core requirements less as hoops to jump through than as opportunities to learn. I'm not paying for this class, yet I am getting more out of it (and putting more into it) than most of my peers are--and than I ever would have/did in their situation. Also, whereas I was so shy it hurt to look anyone in the eye in college, I actually want to participate now (and didn't freak out when I saw that participation was part of the grade, which I usually did in college because that meant I'd either have to talk or plan for a deduction off my grade).
I'm still struggling with this new identity of "nontraditional student." I deliberately signed up for a professor whom I knew, a little, and that's been a good element. When she took attendance the first day, she kind of laughed and said, "I saw your name on the roster and thought, 'I wonder if that's the same person I know!'"
On the first evening, I thought I had garnered some cool points for myself: When we had to go around the room and name our favorite artists, the goth kid at the front of my row said his included Brian Warner and Maynard James Keenan (Marilyn Manson and the Tool/Perfect Circle frontman, respectively, for the uninitiated). So at the break, I asked him if he'd seen either of them perform their art, and he hadn't. I told him I'd seen Manson in a small club back in '95, we chatted for a few minutes, then I mentioned that I've also seen Tool. "I can tell that you and I are gonna be friends," he says. I spend the rest of the evening congratulating myself for having the nerve to talk to the cool kid with black nail polish (in college, I never started a conversation with someone I didn't know, let alone anyone who looked cool) and reassuring myself that maybe I'm not as obsolete and lame in the eyes of my classmates as I fear.
Those feelings get shot to heck Thursday evening before class, when the kid next to me is talking to the kid behind me and makes a comment about "my black-metal book." He pulls Lords of Chaos out of his backpack, and without even thinking I exclaim, "Oh, I have that book! It's really good, and I bought a bunch of Emperor stuff after I read it." He gives me this completely dismissive look for about half a second--the "uh-huh, really, how nice, I could not care less" look--and turns to his friend. I sit there for the subsequent five minutes of their conversation feeling like an idiot and thinking, "When Ashes of Heaven* comes out and every goth/freak/black metal kid on the planet wants to hang out with me, he's really going to feel like a jerk for writing me off like that." Yeah. High school redux.
Oh well. At the break, the prof came over to talk to me about an e-mail I'd sent her, and one of the female students sort of hovered nearby. When the prof asked her what was up, the girl said she wanted to apologize for any future occasions on which she comes to class late. She explained that she has to take the shuttle from another classroom building (we'll call it Bldg A), and due to the regular tardiness of the bus and the need to change buses, she isn't sure she will always make it in time.** I ended up giving her my business card with my cell number on it. I'm at the office until I leave for class, I told her, and I take my car even though I work fairly close to our class (Bldg B), because I don't want to have to walk back to my car after dark alone. It would take a grand total of 10 minutes for me to stop by Bldg A on my way to class and pick her up. I don't know whether she'll call, but she seemed grateful.
If I can't be cool, at least I can be thoughtful, right?
*Ashes of Heaven is my on-the-back-burner-for-now, but-still-alive-in-my-head novel about a black metal band in central P.A. whose members burn churches and ultimately conjure the demon Azazel during a concert. I probably have 300 or 400 pages of it written; it needs to be organized a bit better and tightened up, and I have to figure out what actually happens after Azazel shows up. It's on the when/IF I ever finish Nightmares of Lost Ghosts pile.
**There's a half hour between classes, which should be sufficient to get from one place to another but isn't always. The shuttles are notoriously unreliable (although better now than they used to be). If you're more than 15 minutes late to class, you're considered absent; four absences means automatic failure. So she really is screwed if the buses are late or full, or if she misses her connection. And I remember how as a first-year student you don't always have a lot of leeway in what your schedule ends up looking like; you kind of have to sign up for whatever sections are still available. And the location of Bldg A is such that she should certainly not walk, especially alone, to or from it, which the prof and I both emphasized to her.
Having always loathed the "nontraditional" (read: older) students who tried to buddy up to the prof and dominated every class discussion, I am determined not to be that person. At the same time, I understand that person a little better now. When school is something you choose and not just the taken-for-granted next step after high school, maybe you view even your basic core requirements less as hoops to jump through than as opportunities to learn. I'm not paying for this class, yet I am getting more out of it (and putting more into it) than most of my peers are--and than I ever would have/did in their situation. Also, whereas I was so shy it hurt to look anyone in the eye in college, I actually want to participate now (and didn't freak out when I saw that participation was part of the grade, which I usually did in college because that meant I'd either have to talk or plan for a deduction off my grade).
I'm still struggling with this new identity of "nontraditional student." I deliberately signed up for a professor whom I knew, a little, and that's been a good element. When she took attendance the first day, she kind of laughed and said, "I saw your name on the roster and thought, 'I wonder if that's the same person I know!'"
On the first evening, I thought I had garnered some cool points for myself: When we had to go around the room and name our favorite artists, the goth kid at the front of my row said his included Brian Warner and Maynard James Keenan (Marilyn Manson and the Tool/Perfect Circle frontman, respectively, for the uninitiated). So at the break, I asked him if he'd seen either of them perform their art, and he hadn't. I told him I'd seen Manson in a small club back in '95, we chatted for a few minutes, then I mentioned that I've also seen Tool. "I can tell that you and I are gonna be friends," he says. I spend the rest of the evening congratulating myself for having the nerve to talk to the cool kid with black nail polish (in college, I never started a conversation with someone I didn't know, let alone anyone who looked cool) and reassuring myself that maybe I'm not as obsolete and lame in the eyes of my classmates as I fear.
Those feelings get shot to heck Thursday evening before class, when the kid next to me is talking to the kid behind me and makes a comment about "my black-metal book." He pulls Lords of Chaos out of his backpack, and without even thinking I exclaim, "Oh, I have that book! It's really good, and I bought a bunch of Emperor stuff after I read it." He gives me this completely dismissive look for about half a second--the "uh-huh, really, how nice, I could not care less" look--and turns to his friend. I sit there for the subsequent five minutes of their conversation feeling like an idiot and thinking, "When Ashes of Heaven* comes out and every goth/freak/black metal kid on the planet wants to hang out with me, he's really going to feel like a jerk for writing me off like that." Yeah. High school redux.
Oh well. At the break, the prof came over to talk to me about an e-mail I'd sent her, and one of the female students sort of hovered nearby. When the prof asked her what was up, the girl said she wanted to apologize for any future occasions on which she comes to class late. She explained that she has to take the shuttle from another classroom building (we'll call it Bldg A), and due to the regular tardiness of the bus and the need to change buses, she isn't sure she will always make it in time.** I ended up giving her my business card with my cell number on it. I'm at the office until I leave for class, I told her, and I take my car even though I work fairly close to our class (Bldg B), because I don't want to have to walk back to my car after dark alone. It would take a grand total of 10 minutes for me to stop by Bldg A on my way to class and pick her up. I don't know whether she'll call, but she seemed grateful.
If I can't be cool, at least I can be thoughtful, right?
*Ashes of Heaven is my on-the-back-burner-for-now, but-still-alive-in-my-head novel about a black metal band in central P.A. whose members burn churches and ultimately conjure the demon Azazel during a concert. I probably have 300 or 400 pages of it written; it needs to be organized a bit better and tightened up, and I have to figure out what actually happens after Azazel shows up. It's on the when/IF I ever finish Nightmares of Lost Ghosts pile.
**There's a half hour between classes, which should be sufficient to get from one place to another but isn't always. The shuttles are notoriously unreliable (although better now than they used to be). If you're more than 15 minutes late to class, you're considered absent; four absences means automatic failure. So she really is screwed if the buses are late or full, or if she misses her connection. And I remember how as a first-year student you don't always have a lot of leeway in what your schedule ends up looking like; you kind of have to sign up for whatever sections are still available. And the location of Bldg A is such that she should certainly not walk, especially alone, to or from it, which the prof and I both emphasized to her.
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