Tales From College (Year the Second): Sunday, August 27, 2006
Well, the first week of college has joined the many other weeks which reside in The Past, and the time has finally come for an update. After a summer of silence that rang out over the internet and caused the people to mourn quietly, I shall arrive anew with a mighty sound! Announce it from the mountaintops: the king hath returned!
Mine classes! ------------------------------------------------------------------------>
Monday+Wednesday+Friday = Cultural Ecology + Portuguese 101
These two shock me. C. Ecology (See? Ecology!) is taught by a woman who reminds me a great deal of Sra. Staggs. She's nice enough, but much given to meandering discourse and long pauses. She posted the wrong list of books for the class, and we all had to go return them and buy new ones (why does returning three books and buying two mean that I oew the bookstore seventy dollars?) Inner Jacob: "Well, that's kind of unprofessional." But because she's actually a part-time professor she's not enmeshed in scholarly politics. For example, when we discussed global warming, she gave us both the reasons why scientists think it's occuring and the reasons politicians think it's not. Inner Jacob: "Well, that's surprisingly even-handed."
Portuguese ... ... ... ... is fun, but I have come to realize that it was created one night when Satan got unbelievably stoned and also had some of his teeth knocked out. My professor just came over from "O Portugal" two weeks ago. This is her very first time in America. Her accent sounds like a mix between high-class British and low-class Boston, but occasionally she'll seem to slip into Italian. When she speaks Portuguese itself (often) it sounds like Russian mixed with French. Half of the class is performed in pantomime, and the other half in grunts and moans as we try to pronounce this devil-tongued language.
Wednesday, all alone = Tai Chi
Yes! I study the ancient art of qi! I'm enjoying it a lot so far - after one class - though I of course haven't learned much. Just three stances, how to breathe, how to walk, and a movement called "Hands like Clouds" which breaks an assailant's arm in three places. ALSO! ALSO! BAKA/SHANE/KEAFER/EMI/OTHERS: The actual name of the type of Tai Chi I'm learning is called ... get ready for it ... Yang Style 16 Palms.
F*ck yes.
Tuesday + Thursday = Spanish Composition + Linguistics + Tae Kwon Do
Spanish has thus far been disappointingly disappointing. The teacher is a very dull man who smiles a lot but is still too dull to make up for it. He's not a native speaker, but rather a White Man, which does mean that I can understand him easily. I shrug, and say that I did not expect to learn more, rather only to keep my skills sharp.
However, I thank god thta Linguistics has been the exact opposite. Hooray! There's a bunch of cool-looking people in the class who I will maybe someday talk to? The teacher is really cool: she's a Jew whose familial ancestors hailed from Ukraine, but her parents were both born in Germany, but she was born in Austria but she's lived in Louisville from the age of twenty. Her voice sounds like starlight.
I have to walk perhaps 3/4 of a mile off-campus to get to my *other* martial arts class, which is sadly the more martial of the two. I strongly believe that I would fall perhaps in the top 2% of the people in the class on a scale of how seriously they take it. Only a few others have ever taken any martial arts before, oh well. The "professor-not-actually-a-professor" is only a few years older than me but a 3rd Dan black belt. He's pretty cool. I'm enjoying it, though I never intended to take any TKD. It's not really my style. Next semester I'm probably going to end up taking Aikido and Kempo.
Other = Yes
I am listening to the beautiful harmonica right now as I play it! I do this because my roommate is elsewhere for the weekend! --> Thus, harmonica time. He's is actually a relatively cool man. We're both extremely polite to each other, almost strangely so? We've made it a game, wherein each has to graciously accede to anything the other asks. Thus: "Can I turn off the light?" "Oh, of course, that's fine." "Can you move so I can lie on the floor?" "No problem!" "Can you just pretend you didn't see that?" "Gladly!" So, you know, it's cool.
Oddly, though, it seems my dorm is the "Geek building." We all are. I see people walking down the halls with Star Trek shirts and horn-rimmed glasses. It's not quite what I was looking for, but at least I didn't get the ghetto building again like last year. Nick got it this time. All three of his roommates are large black men who could use me as a toothpick, tai chi or not. Nick sleeps with a machete.
Last night Nick and I went into Louisville proper (aka Bardstown Road, which is truly teh awesome) and got some dinner with Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaandy and then we just kind of kicked around. A probably stoned 13-year old boy probably hit on me, which was confusing. Mandy introduced us to a friend she ran across in the women's bathroom, who was a man in drag. Then, at midnight, we saw Serenity! on the big screen! It truly was a religious experience. The crowd was very appreciative, and laughed/cheered/cried at all the right moments - except for one old man who slept through it. Weirdo.
Mine classes! ------------------------------------------------------------------------>
Monday+Wednesday+Friday = Cultural Ecology + Portuguese 101
These two shock me. C. Ecology (See? Ecology!) is taught by a woman who reminds me a great deal of Sra. Staggs. She's nice enough, but much given to meandering discourse and long pauses. She posted the wrong list of books for the class, and we all had to go return them and buy new ones (why does returning three books and buying two mean that I oew the bookstore seventy dollars?) Inner Jacob: "Well, that's kind of unprofessional." But because she's actually a part-time professor she's not enmeshed in scholarly politics. For example, when we discussed global warming, she gave us both the reasons why scientists think it's occuring and the reasons politicians think it's not. Inner Jacob: "Well, that's surprisingly even-handed."
Portuguese ... ... ... ... is fun, but I have come to realize that it was created one night when Satan got unbelievably stoned and also had some of his teeth knocked out. My professor just came over from "O Portugal" two weeks ago. This is her very first time in America. Her accent sounds like a mix between high-class British and low-class Boston, but occasionally she'll seem to slip into Italian. When she speaks Portuguese itself (often) it sounds like Russian mixed with French. Half of the class is performed in pantomime, and the other half in grunts and moans as we try to pronounce this devil-tongued language.
Wednesday, all alone = Tai Chi
Yes! I study the ancient art of qi! I'm enjoying it a lot so far - after one class - though I of course haven't learned much. Just three stances, how to breathe, how to walk, and a movement called "Hands like Clouds" which breaks an assailant's arm in three places. ALSO! ALSO! BAKA/SHANE/KEAFER/EMI/OTHERS: The actual name of the type of Tai Chi I'm learning is called ... get ready for it ... Yang Style 16 Palms.
F*ck yes.
Tuesday + Thursday = Spanish Composition + Linguistics + Tae Kwon Do
Spanish has thus far been disappointingly disappointing. The teacher is a very dull man who smiles a lot but is still too dull to make up for it. He's not a native speaker, but rather a White Man, which does mean that I can understand him easily. I shrug, and say that I did not expect to learn more, rather only to keep my skills sharp.
However, I thank god thta Linguistics has been the exact opposite. Hooray! There's a bunch of cool-looking people in the class who I will maybe someday talk to? The teacher is really cool: she's a Jew whose familial ancestors hailed from Ukraine, but her parents were both born in Germany, but she was born in Austria but she's lived in Louisville from the age of twenty. Her voice sounds like starlight.
I have to walk perhaps 3/4 of a mile off-campus to get to my *other* martial arts class, which is sadly the more martial of the two. I strongly believe that I would fall perhaps in the top 2% of the people in the class on a scale of how seriously they take it. Only a few others have ever taken any martial arts before, oh well. The "professor-not-actually-a-professor" is only a few years older than me but a 3rd Dan black belt. He's pretty cool. I'm enjoying it, though I never intended to take any TKD. It's not really my style. Next semester I'm probably going to end up taking Aikido and Kempo.
Other = Yes
I am listening to the beautiful harmonica right now as I play it! I do this because my roommate is elsewhere for the weekend! --> Thus, harmonica time. He's is actually a relatively cool man. We're both extremely polite to each other, almost strangely so? We've made it a game, wherein each has to graciously accede to anything the other asks. Thus: "Can I turn off the light?" "Oh, of course, that's fine." "Can you move so I can lie on the floor?" "No problem!" "Can you just pretend you didn't see that?" "Gladly!" So, you know, it's cool.
Oddly, though, it seems my dorm is the "Geek building." We all are. I see people walking down the halls with Star Trek shirts and horn-rimmed glasses. It's not quite what I was looking for, but at least I didn't get the ghetto building again like last year. Nick got it this time. All three of his roommates are large black men who could use me as a toothpick, tai chi or not. Nick sleeps with a machete.
Last night Nick and I went into Louisville proper (aka Bardstown Road, which is truly teh awesome) and got some dinner with Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaandy and then we just kind of kicked around. A probably stoned 13-year old boy probably hit on me, which was confusing. Mandy introduced us to a friend she ran across in the women's bathroom, who was a man in drag. Then, at midnight, we saw Serenity! on the big screen! It truly was a religious experience. The crowd was very appreciative, and laughed/cheered/cried at all the right moments - except for one old man who slept through it. Weirdo.