(no subject)
Today I woke up around 9:30, hugging a football. Greg came back to hang
out and find out where he stands as far as enrollment next quarter (seems
he shall return), and he was sleeping on the couch because his former
roommate Quang pushed their beds together. I dropped the football on his
head to wake him from his drunken slumber, but he changed his mind about
going to Prof. John's CAT lecture. When I got there John talked about the
paper for a bit and then Darren the writing director took over. He sat at
a keyboard with the Word doc projected on the wall and explained the
process he takes writing a paper. For a long time he spoke as he typed,
but at the same painful pace that he typed. After describing the process
of creating a chaos draft by typing freely from your conscious level he
went over a few points and ideas relating to the prompt. If I had taken
the time to organize my ideas using any of the techniques he described, my
other papers would have been stronger. In my last few attempts to submit a
decent paper, I've taken the time to digest the reading. I think of other
connections that illustrate the points I want to make about the subject
matter and usually have to spend some time researching whatever it is I
wanna talk about.. I think I spend too much time doing that and always
fail to spread the writing out so that I don't have to be uncomfortable
with the deadline. You'd think that after years of essays I'd care enough
to not write a paper linearlly one line at a time . . but it really worked
out well enough in high school. I wasn't doing my best at all, but a
rushed effort was good enough to get a B. They definitely grade harder
here. But justly.
http://www.chrisjordan.com
check out the cigarette butt mountain.
So at this point Darren asks TA Steve to be his disc jockey. Goofy string
quartet music pours out and Darren declares "now I am going to write!".
And he sat there and typed in silence. A tango, followed by an song that
sounded Eastern.. and he goes through each of 6 seperate points he came up
with and wrote a general sentance or two about them. The process took
about half of the 90 minute lecture.. though he welcomed us to ask Steve
to stop this music for a question, kids talked and at least 10 people
left. I was seriously considering leaving but since I learned something
from the first part I figured there must be some incentive for enduring.
During the last five minutes a few people asked some questions.. "Is this
how you really go about writing?". My favorite.. TA Steve "The dangerous
thing about what you're doing is that you haven't written a single
sentence that any living person would want to look at yet.." meaning that
after explaining his conscious brainstorm of some specific ideas, he took
our time to compose a more general stream of conciouness outline.
Darren took offense to this because of the way he said it.. "Ah.. Ah..
Ah.. Well here! Peter, what are you doing Thursday?" ..he mumbles
something about lecturing.. "Good then I'll just bring the finished copy
and we can go over that next time." ..peter "maybe for a portion of
the time." Deep down I wanted to tell Darren that I learned something, but
that his approach was horrible, but instead I raised my hand and stated "I
don't want to sit through this on Thursday." A few people laughed and he
said "Oh, well you don't have to. I appreciate you telling me that." After
talking about it in section and thinking about it afterwards I regret
being blunt without explaining myself properly but seriously.. I was
grinding my teeth.
So after hanging out and grabbing something to eat I went to work at the
Film and Video library.. 5-10 pm. Around 6 my pals Greg and John came by
and I took my break. We talked and hung out at the bottom of Mandeville
Stairwell and admired the art. 2 guys with a video camera wandered in and
took a seat with us. They were shooting a video for the MUS4 Western Music
class I'm in, instead of coming up with proof that they attended 4 shows
with music before 1945 and 2 contemporary ones....! They ended up telling
us magical stories about the dreaded underground tunnels @ UCSD. Almost
every story I hear about wandering around down there ends with law
enforcement so I've been sketchy about exploring them but they confirmed
my knowledge about the alarm system down there. ;)
We were sitting there initiating Greg's new pipe, which is to be named
after the suit wearing midget butler who lives on an island in that
movie... but we can't recall the title or the midget's name, when all of a
sudden a black man starts chanting in a strange language. After about 10
seconds a drum fill and then beautiful and tense trumpet and sax come in.
Through the concrete and a locked door at the bottom the sound was still
so sharp that we were sure it was live, so we walked around looking for
the source. We peered into a classroom to realize it was empty except for
a black professor with white hair. I started to walk away but Greg said
"should we ask him who he's listening to?" I pushed open the door and
walked up to him, winding up about a foot away because the music was
drowning out my voice. He informed me that I was hearing Charlie Mingus, a
name I read about once but hadn't been exposed to musically. He directed
the conversation from jazz to the very stoners who stood before him. He
was a very intense speaker and positioned himself a foot away from your
face and demanded our full eye contact. He pointed out our squirming or
avoiding his huge yellow eyes. His blown open pupils were surrounded by a
fiery blue iris. He asked us what instruments we play. John and Greg both
played instruments (John, trumpet; Greg, trombone, bass) but had quit
after a year or two. They loved doing it, but never got back into it. He
inspired them by cornering them with questions into admitting that they
owe it to themselves to get back into playing. Before he asked me what I
play, he asked us why we're doing it to ourselves, referring to our stoned
mental states. He declared that we were "trapped in mental slavery", and
that we were destroying ourselves. I asked him question after question to
try and reach an understanding of why he believed marijuana to be so evil,
and he asked me if I had trouble remembering things as well as I used to.
While I don't often forget events that happen or someone's actions, I've
had a horrible time remembering things like names over the last year. I
honestly don't feel much brain rot but I agreed with him. When I protested
that I don't think that it's fucking me up very seriously, he said that
THAT was the problem, that I was hurting myself and making up excuses.
Greg started to say "well if we hadn't smoked I don't think I would've
even ended up coming to this room.." and he cut in strongly by saying that
he had brought us here, not pot. The man told me that I might be ok now,
but if I tried methadone I could kiss it all goodbye. I tried to express
my experience and knowledge of hard drugs and what they do to people, but
he pretty much dismissed it. I said "I don't get why you're so worried
about pot though?" and he said "Me?? Worried? No!" I interrupted by saying
that this isn't what I meant to say, I didn't think he was worried but I
wanted to know what exactly he thought was the problem. He said some profound stuff,
but unfortunately I forgot how he worded it so I guess that proves his point.
"I'm gonna be 81 years old.. I won't be here that much longer, you guys will. If you
kill yourself with drugs than you'll remember what I said."
The conversation carried on for about half an hour, making our adventure
extend well past the appropriate time span for a considerate break. He had
to have been the most intense man I'd ever met before. Immediately
afterwards I caught myself trying to rationalize some of what he said to
myself by being defensive. He made some good points but I still don't understand
his urgency. I think I'll talk to him again. He's leaving in 3 weeks, so I'm definitely
gonna check out his jazz band concert..
JUNE FIRST, MANDEVILLE AUDITORIUM, 7 PM!!
Sat at work, explained the situation to my coworkers and one of my supervisors, Nick (http://www.myspace.com/thedrinks) said that the black guy, Jimmy Cheatham mentors him.
So he's used to the face to face talks too. The rest of the time at work I just sat there
and thought about what he said. And I wrote all this shit. Yes. I'm tired and this entry's too
long already. Let me know if anyone finishes reading it.. and what you think too!
GOOD NIGHT!!!
out and find out where he stands as far as enrollment next quarter (seems
he shall return), and he was sleeping on the couch because his former
roommate Quang pushed their beds together. I dropped the football on his
head to wake him from his drunken slumber, but he changed his mind about
going to Prof. John's CAT lecture. When I got there John talked about the
paper for a bit and then Darren the writing director took over. He sat at
a keyboard with the Word doc projected on the wall and explained the
process he takes writing a paper. For a long time he spoke as he typed,
but at the same painful pace that he typed. After describing the process
of creating a chaos draft by typing freely from your conscious level he
went over a few points and ideas relating to the prompt. If I had taken
the time to organize my ideas using any of the techniques he described, my
other papers would have been stronger. In my last few attempts to submit a
decent paper, I've taken the time to digest the reading. I think of other
connections that illustrate the points I want to make about the subject
matter and usually have to spend some time researching whatever it is I
wanna talk about.. I think I spend too much time doing that and always
fail to spread the writing out so that I don't have to be uncomfortable
with the deadline. You'd think that after years of essays I'd care enough
to not write a paper linearlly one line at a time . . but it really worked
out well enough in high school. I wasn't doing my best at all, but a
rushed effort was good enough to get a B. They definitely grade harder
here. But justly.
http://www.chrisjordan.com
check out the cigarette butt mountain.
So at this point Darren asks TA Steve to be his disc jockey. Goofy string
quartet music pours out and Darren declares "now I am going to write!".
And he sat there and typed in silence. A tango, followed by an song that
sounded Eastern.. and he goes through each of 6 seperate points he came up
with and wrote a general sentance or two about them. The process took
about half of the 90 minute lecture.. though he welcomed us to ask Steve
to stop this music for a question, kids talked and at least 10 people
left. I was seriously considering leaving but since I learned something
from the first part I figured there must be some incentive for enduring.
During the last five minutes a few people asked some questions.. "Is this
how you really go about writing?". My favorite.. TA Steve "The dangerous
thing about what you're doing is that you haven't written a single
sentence that any living person would want to look at yet.." meaning that
after explaining his conscious brainstorm of some specific ideas, he took
our time to compose a more general stream of conciouness outline.
Darren took offense to this because of the way he said it.. "Ah.. Ah..
Ah.. Well here! Peter, what are you doing Thursday?" ..he mumbles
something about lecturing.. "Good then I'll just bring the finished copy
and we can go over that next time." ..peter "maybe for a portion of
the time." Deep down I wanted to tell Darren that I learned something, but
that his approach was horrible, but instead I raised my hand and stated "I
don't want to sit through this on Thursday." A few people laughed and he
said "Oh, well you don't have to. I appreciate you telling me that." After
talking about it in section and thinking about it afterwards I regret
being blunt without explaining myself properly but seriously.. I was
grinding my teeth.
So after hanging out and grabbing something to eat I went to work at the
Film and Video library.. 5-10 pm. Around 6 my pals Greg and John came by
and I took my break. We talked and hung out at the bottom of Mandeville
Stairwell and admired the art. 2 guys with a video camera wandered in and
took a seat with us. They were shooting a video for the MUS4 Western Music
class I'm in, instead of coming up with proof that they attended 4 shows
with music before 1945 and 2 contemporary ones....! They ended up telling
us magical stories about the dreaded underground tunnels @ UCSD. Almost
every story I hear about wandering around down there ends with law
enforcement so I've been sketchy about exploring them but they confirmed
my knowledge about the alarm system down there. ;)
We were sitting there initiating Greg's new pipe, which is to be named
after the suit wearing midget butler who lives on an island in that
movie... but we can't recall the title or the midget's name, when all of a
sudden a black man starts chanting in a strange language. After about 10
seconds a drum fill and then beautiful and tense trumpet and sax come in.
Through the concrete and a locked door at the bottom the sound was still
so sharp that we were sure it was live, so we walked around looking for
the source. We peered into a classroom to realize it was empty except for
a black professor with white hair. I started to walk away but Greg said
"should we ask him who he's listening to?" I pushed open the door and
walked up to him, winding up about a foot away because the music was
drowning out my voice. He informed me that I was hearing Charlie Mingus, a
name I read about once but hadn't been exposed to musically. He directed
the conversation from jazz to the very stoners who stood before him. He
was a very intense speaker and positioned himself a foot away from your
face and demanded our full eye contact. He pointed out our squirming or
avoiding his huge yellow eyes. His blown open pupils were surrounded by a
fiery blue iris. He asked us what instruments we play. John and Greg both
played instruments (John, trumpet; Greg, trombone, bass) but had quit
after a year or two. They loved doing it, but never got back into it. He
inspired them by cornering them with questions into admitting that they
owe it to themselves to get back into playing. Before he asked me what I
play, he asked us why we're doing it to ourselves, referring to our stoned
mental states. He declared that we were "trapped in mental slavery", and
that we were destroying ourselves. I asked him question after question to
try and reach an understanding of why he believed marijuana to be so evil,
and he asked me if I had trouble remembering things as well as I used to.
While I don't often forget events that happen or someone's actions, I've
had a horrible time remembering things like names over the last year. I
honestly don't feel much brain rot but I agreed with him. When I protested
that I don't think that it's fucking me up very seriously, he said that
THAT was the problem, that I was hurting myself and making up excuses.
Greg started to say "well if we hadn't smoked I don't think I would've
even ended up coming to this room.." and he cut in strongly by saying that
he had brought us here, not pot. The man told me that I might be ok now,
but if I tried methadone I could kiss it all goodbye. I tried to express
my experience and knowledge of hard drugs and what they do to people, but
he pretty much dismissed it. I said "I don't get why you're so worried
about pot though?" and he said "Me?? Worried? No!" I interrupted by saying
that this isn't what I meant to say, I didn't think he was worried but I
wanted to know what exactly he thought was the problem. He said some profound stuff,
but unfortunately I forgot how he worded it so I guess that proves his point.
"I'm gonna be 81 years old.. I won't be here that much longer, you guys will. If you
kill yourself with drugs than you'll remember what I said."
The conversation carried on for about half an hour, making our adventure
extend well past the appropriate time span for a considerate break. He had
to have been the most intense man I'd ever met before. Immediately
afterwards I caught myself trying to rationalize some of what he said to
myself by being defensive. He made some good points but I still don't understand
his urgency. I think I'll talk to him again. He's leaving in 3 weeks, so I'm definitely
gonna check out his jazz band concert..
JUNE FIRST, MANDEVILLE AUDITORIUM, 7 PM!!
Sat at work, explained the situation to my coworkers and one of my supervisors, Nick (http://www.myspace.com/thedrinks) said that the black guy, Jimmy Cheatham mentors him.
So he's used to the face to face talks too. The rest of the time at work I just sat there
and thought about what he said. And I wrote all this shit. Yes. I'm tired and this entry's too
long already. Let me know if anyone finishes reading it.. and what you think too!
GOOD NIGHT!!!