Thursday, January 22nd, 2004
at 8:46 a.m.
I am so long on time now, so short on things to do. Of course, soon it will be the opposite, eww, so the opposite, but right now I'd settle for a happy medium.
My friends Sarah and Mindy got jobs together as cocktail waitresses and I'm basically jealous. Of course I'm happy for them, but I want a job like that too! They pay much less than my former job, and I may yet return to Gap, but only if my soul really needs hoovering. . .Or I'm desperate for money, which, judging by the tall order of things I want to get up to seems pret-ty likely.
It's nine and I don't have class until noon, but everyone else is in class, and I have no homework to do, no errands to run, I already ate breakfast, I have no books to read (I couldn't put The Da Vinci Code down so I finished it really quickly, unfortunately), and there aren't any chores that need to be done. So am I wasting time by writing this entry? You be the judge!
Last night my three best friend and I went out for drinks at this really chill, comfortable, packed-full-for-a-wednesday-night pub around the corner. Sipping cocktails we analyzed Alyssa's and Sarah's current, doomed, relationships, and the role of sex, and how much 'time' Sarah still owes her boyfriend for giving her rides to and from the airport while carrying all her luggage--if indeed she does owe him time. We concluded that she should give him at least a week, instead of it seeming like she used him for the ride and then abruptly broke it off. Regular Samantha, Charlotte, Carrie, and Miranda, we are.
Oh, so my classes! I listed my schedule but here's the skinny.
World Cultural History II Honors is basically a cultural class (duh) about world outide the tradition Western education scope, So that basically means that we should be learning things we may have touched on as freshman in high school, but to a much more in-depth degree (duh again). The doc is this young guy who wears Diesel style and looks like any other well-dressed guy at my school and he makes us call him "Dom" (his first name is Dominic). He's also got crazy curly dark hair that sticks up every which way, even though it's not very thick at all, and he speaks in a faint Spanish-like accent for some explicable reason, even though he's only lived in London, New York, Canada, and New Zealand. Maybe by chance the combination of those accents happen to converge into one resembling someone from Spain?? I don't know, but it is a true mystery.
Then my Rights, Choices, and Values class is one that every student is required to take for graduation. It looks like it will be a really fascinating class. It's about so many things: global identities, current events, international relations, defining aspects of people (skin color? race? ethnicity? political persuasion? religion? fundamentalism? gender?), etceteras, etceteras. Most of my classes are small and therefore combine lecture and discussion into one, but this one is a bigger class and therefore follows the traditional lecture/discussion seminar format, as does my honors seminar, The Creative Impulse, which in addition to Ehtics and Values also happens to be taught by "James," another prof who wants us to call him by his first name. In fact, all my profs do; apparently it's the English way. James is this older wiry tall British guy who you could tell was once very handsome but now has weathered the tests of time, lol. He's not too old, he said he was 48, but he's got wrinkles, like he was in the sun too much when he was young. He's also got longish black hair he wears in a ponytail. Sound familiar anyone? Well I have secretly nicknamed him 'Sirius'. . .He fits my imagination's description of that character much more than the upcoming movie's casting. . .He's very energetic and funny, so despite the hard work I think I'll like those classes. Anyhoo, this one has lecture back to back so it's a three hour class, ehh, but we get a brief break in between at least. This class is about a lot of things as well, which are also interwoven, such as what is creativity, how do we increase it, who is creative, and is designed to let us build our own creativity through a journal, lots of readings, discussion seminars, presentations, and a final 'Big' creative project. I know some of you were amused by the title of my "When Worlds Collide: Race and Empire in America" class, lol. Should be interesting though. This is my third history class of the year, so I may just say what the hell and minor in it. This one concentrates on three groups: the Native Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans, and the multiplicity of roles they play for and against the United Sate's building of an empire, or lack thereof possibly. It's taught by the same teacher I had for last term's History, this rotund middle-aged Englishman who paces like crazy and has a habbit of stuttering, but who is a fantastic teacher with a great sense of wry humour. It's the idiosyncrasies that make life interesting, wouldn't you say? Then. . .this writing class I have to take to fulfill my Honors requirement, even though I already fulfilled my writing classes at U.C.L.A.! It seems like it will be really hard work, but annoying, because we're covering things that me senior AP Lit/Grammar teacher perfected in me those years ago. I suppose that there is no harm in practice, but I can't help feeling a bit irked by this. It's taught by a lovely woman though, who also teaches Rights, Choices, and Value along with James. She's this floaty, smiley, gestural woman who reminds me of a middle-aged Brideget Jones (the way Renee Zellweger plays her). I know I keep making movie references but that's a language most of us speak, hmm?
Then the "Art of Math" whatever this may mean! All I know is that my advisor says that I need this type both for my major Art History, and for my gened requirement. I have been to the class, and even asked him straight out, "So what is this class about anyway??" to which everyone laughed, because no one knows. Apparently not even the teacher, who was approached to teach it this year for the first time. Usually he's doing the upper echelons of math and chemistry, but now he's with us lowly art majors, haha. I think it has a lot to do with the Fibonacci sequence, and the golden variance, and PHI and all that lovely stuff (those who have read The Da Vinci Code will know all about this! See how I keep mentioning it? Heh. It's weird. . .three of my classes have dealt heavily with subject matter within it--it was very educatonal!). Back to the teacher: he is this short little english gnome who spent the whole classroom witht he middle button of his shirt unbottoned. He's the epitome of a crazy little math professor, and has a really hilarious pessimistic humour. Like, he makes jokes at our expense but not too harsh, then immediately smooths it over with another joke about himself, and what does he even know what he's talking about, or something like that. But the bottom line: typical scatterbrained little mad English math professor. Can you picture it?
I'm in the computer lab and these African girls are screaming at the top of their lungs and laughing hysterically, and chasing each other wildly around the computer banks while everyone is giving them dirty looks. I mean, I'm all for having fun and. . .playing tag. . .but really now! Around the computer banks while people are doing things? Uh, no?
Alrighty, I'm going to head over to the cafe to get an early start on some homework, check you later.
What song is playing on my iTunes right now: What I'm reading: What I'm Wearing: Back to anecdotal journalism again! - Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
Plan? - Monday, Jun. 19, 2006
FINALLY things are going better!
(This month redefined my understanding of stress and 'hell') - Monday, April 24th, 2006
Just a few more days! - Monday, February 27th, 2006
Another one to chalk up to College Experiences - Sunday, February 12th, 2006