Caffeine-fueled babbling; Puh-LEASE feel free to ignore.
Oh... my hell. It's been such a long time since I've sat here in front of one of these primitive machines in the Schine Student Lounge Computer Cluster, Where You Can Bring Your Food And So Everything Is Sticky and Now My Nails Are Sporting A Lovely New Shade Called Dried Ketchup.
It's been such a long time since I've sat here drinking my coffee, burning my taste buds and feeling my heart rate go high above normal on a magical cloud called Caffeine (Will Kill You).
It almost feels like freshman year.
A few differences:
As some very old archived entires will verify, when I *used* to update my livejournal from here over a year ago, Martha Stewart's show would be on since all the tvs in here are anchored to CBS all day long. And I said terrible things about her eating children suchness. But still, I sat in here with my caffeine-pumped heart ticking like a little bomb infused with the knowledge that I was *probably* the only student in the entire fucking university who *wouldn't* change the channel if we were given the option. Of course I realize The Price is Right has its cult following, but Martha? No one at my age wants to see that soulless witch making cakes with flower pots. Except for me.
So that's one thing I miss.
Also, the Dunkachino was my Heinous Beverage of Choice back then, in the glory days of that lonely but triumphant Age of Discovery known as first semester freshman year. Now, it's the Vanilla Chai.
But today breaks even that trend. Today I have hot chocolate. It is strange and uncomfortable, and feels a bit too generic. But I can't blow swirled designs into the foam on top with the other HBCs. And wish I had my digital camera.
I am not here freshly dismissed from Captain Sang's class, my mind still molested by him saying "true indeed." He said that a lot. That condescending Napoleonic man-devil from the Congo who claimed to live for two things; boxing and jazz.
A few things that remain the same:
While I no longer have Biopsychology (I forgot that one completely--- that class was such an inspiration. The video, which I determined must be a secret tribute to me and my demented friends, we watched about people with neurological disorders featuring the poet-prophet woman with the "brain salad" "problem" talking about Jesus being a plastic bag floating from the ceiling, was a highlight...) or Captain Sang fueling my malleable little brain, I do have a new crackhead African American Studies professor in my life. I have found a pattern in that academic department between these two men. Small, brilliant, impersonal, and awkward in conversation. And as proud and strange as little puffed-up birds. That Rastafarian prodigy Professor Campbell gave a tour-de-force lecture today, rather than just alienating and making most of the students feel stupid as usual. He called me out the average number of times, and made me repeat some of it, saying "oh, Jessica, it was so good they want to hear it again." Everyone in that class hates me. They must think I'm the biggest cock sucker on the face of the planet. I heart academia.
Anyway. I think he may have gained a few fans back when he started talking about marijuana being the holy sacrament in Rasta, and saying that marijuana use should be decriminalized. Some asshole kid asked him why he didn't have dreads and he said "oh, the dreads are in the heart, my friend!" I wish he had dreads though, truly; I'd probably grab onto them and trail around behind him like a kid chasing a parade float. There's another professor in the department who does have dreads, and who's very nice. I find him very handsome and noble looking; lionesque. That of course is the point, however, since dreads are supposed to represent pride and peace with one's physical appearance, and strength in the symbol of the hair, or the mane. "Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was proclaimed "King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and the conquering lion of the Tribe of Judah."
Did anyone know that Christianity and the orthodox church come from Ethiopia? And that the schism corresponded to the break between Western Cartesian thought of materialism, mind-and-body-separation, and rationalism, and the African ideation system's philosophy of integrated spirit and matter which informs the single character of Christ being both human and divine in Orthodox Christianity? And that Western Christian faith, (as opposed to belief) having become dogmatic, and dogma being intolerant, has contributed to building the altar to the God of Profit in the new religion called capitalism because the ruling classes are WASPs? I'm sure we could have all figured that last part out, but it's interesting how in our country the separation of church and state only exists insofar as separating the different Christian (and mostly) protestant denominations from one another to maintain the Christian religious hierarchy in this country.
And the closer you get to the ruling classes, the more 'rational' the denominations become. All the way at the bottom are the Baptists and the Pentecostals or Born-agains, who are characterized by their penchant for spirituals and even at times movements based on speaking in tongues. And these spirituals, of course, stem out of and still characterize the "Negro Spiritual," which connects back to the idea that blacks are 'emotional' and 'irrational,' or close to nature and hence primitive or savage. The truth behind these convictions is of course the integration of spirit and matter, or lack of differentiation between the "Spirit World" and the "Material World" which missionaries and slave drivers alike tried to suppress. Any cosmological structure not represented in organized society was condemned as hedonistic and demonic, so that the Bible and the gun were the twin forces used to put down spirituality and promote the ideation system of the predictable, the rational, and the material, and to launch capitalism on an exponential climb to its current heights.
It is interesting, too, that the ancestor worship which characterizes ancient African belief systems (note the distinction between belief and faith beyond the more easily identified distinction between spirituality and religion) is present in Christianity as well, with Jesus as that ancestor (not to mention all that genealogical bullshit that goes on with the descendants of David and Jesse and god knows who or what else I'm misquoting). Ancestor worship is present in all faiths, monotheistic or otherwise. You have your Jesus or you have your Mohammad or you have your Siddhartha Buddha, or you have your pantheon of greater and lesser gods and goddesses. And the truth is that the more of a variety of both male and female gods and goddesses you have, the more democratic the belief system. But I don't think anyone (who's reading this, anyway) is trying to say that Christianity has ever been democratic.
Some kid in class asked if Islam was more of a religion or a political movement, to which Campbell simply replied that every religion occupies a political space, inevitably. And then the kid said, "but what about the separation of church and state?" At which point Campbell and I both just started laughing. "What about it?" He pointed out that that the Catholic church, and the Christian church in general is facing a major identity crisis right now; a sexual identity crisis, if you will. The problem of who can be religious leaders has always existed, but right now it is centering around the issue of gay marriage. Campbell said, "there are laws saying that it is wrong, that it is illegal, to be a couple of the same sex. That is the height of intolerance." And he concluded that point with the usual "gays and lesbians are people too." And then... "---isn't that right, Jessica?"
Cue people all over the lecture hall: "I told you she was the biggest dyke ever."
So um... yeah... didn't quite mean to get into all of that.
It's been such a long time since I've sat here drinking my coffee, burning my taste buds and feeling my heart rate go high above normal on a magical cloud called Caffeine (Will Kill You).
It almost feels like freshman year.
A few differences:
As some very old archived entires will verify, when I *used* to update my livejournal from here over a year ago, Martha Stewart's show would be on since all the tvs in here are anchored to CBS all day long. And I said terrible things about her eating children suchness. But still, I sat in here with my caffeine-pumped heart ticking like a little bomb infused with the knowledge that I was *probably* the only student in the entire fucking university who *wouldn't* change the channel if we were given the option. Of course I realize The Price is Right has its cult following, but Martha? No one at my age wants to see that soulless witch making cakes with flower pots. Except for me.
So that's one thing I miss.
Also, the Dunkachino was my Heinous Beverage of Choice back then, in the glory days of that lonely but triumphant Age of Discovery known as first semester freshman year. Now, it's the Vanilla Chai.
But today breaks even that trend. Today I have hot chocolate. It is strange and uncomfortable, and feels a bit too generic. But I can't blow swirled designs into the foam on top with the other HBCs. And wish I had my digital camera.
I am not here freshly dismissed from Captain Sang's class, my mind still molested by him saying "true indeed." He said that a lot. That condescending Napoleonic man-devil from the Congo who claimed to live for two things; boxing and jazz.
A few things that remain the same:
While I no longer have Biopsychology (I forgot that one completely--- that class was such an inspiration. The video, which I determined must be a secret tribute to me and my demented friends, we watched about people with neurological disorders featuring the poet-prophet woman with the "brain salad" "problem" talking about Jesus being a plastic bag floating from the ceiling, was a highlight...) or Captain Sang fueling my malleable little brain, I do have a new crackhead African American Studies professor in my life. I have found a pattern in that academic department between these two men. Small, brilliant, impersonal, and awkward in conversation. And as proud and strange as little puffed-up birds. That Rastafarian prodigy Professor Campbell gave a tour-de-force lecture today, rather than just alienating and making most of the students feel stupid as usual. He called me out the average number of times, and made me repeat some of it, saying "oh, Jessica, it was so good they want to hear it again." Everyone in that class hates me. They must think I'm the biggest cock sucker on the face of the planet. I heart academia.
Anyway. I think he may have gained a few fans back when he started talking about marijuana being the holy sacrament in Rasta, and saying that marijuana use should be decriminalized. Some asshole kid asked him why he didn't have dreads and he said "oh, the dreads are in the heart, my friend!" I wish he had dreads though, truly; I'd probably grab onto them and trail around behind him like a kid chasing a parade float. There's another professor in the department who does have dreads, and who's very nice. I find him very handsome and noble looking; lionesque. That of course is the point, however, since dreads are supposed to represent pride and peace with one's physical appearance, and strength in the symbol of the hair, or the mane. "Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was proclaimed "King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and the conquering lion of the Tribe of Judah."
Did anyone know that Christianity and the orthodox church come from Ethiopia? And that the schism corresponded to the break between Western Cartesian thought of materialism, mind-and-body-separation, and rationalism, and the African ideation system's philosophy of integrated spirit and matter which informs the single character of Christ being both human and divine in Orthodox Christianity? And that Western Christian faith, (as opposed to belief) having become dogmatic, and dogma being intolerant, has contributed to building the altar to the God of Profit in the new religion called capitalism because the ruling classes are WASPs? I'm sure we could have all figured that last part out, but it's interesting how in our country the separation of church and state only exists insofar as separating the different Christian (and mostly) protestant denominations from one another to maintain the Christian religious hierarchy in this country.
And the closer you get to the ruling classes, the more 'rational' the denominations become. All the way at the bottom are the Baptists and the Pentecostals or Born-agains, who are characterized by their penchant for spirituals and even at times movements based on speaking in tongues. And these spirituals, of course, stem out of and still characterize the "Negro Spiritual," which connects back to the idea that blacks are 'emotional' and 'irrational,' or close to nature and hence primitive or savage. The truth behind these convictions is of course the integration of spirit and matter, or lack of differentiation between the "Spirit World" and the "Material World" which missionaries and slave drivers alike tried to suppress. Any cosmological structure not represented in organized society was condemned as hedonistic and demonic, so that the Bible and the gun were the twin forces used to put down spirituality and promote the ideation system of the predictable, the rational, and the material, and to launch capitalism on an exponential climb to its current heights.
It is interesting, too, that the ancestor worship which characterizes ancient African belief systems (note the distinction between belief and faith beyond the more easily identified distinction between spirituality and religion) is present in Christianity as well, with Jesus as that ancestor (not to mention all that genealogical bullshit that goes on with the descendants of David and Jesse and god knows who or what else I'm misquoting). Ancestor worship is present in all faiths, monotheistic or otherwise. You have your Jesus or you have your Mohammad or you have your Siddhartha Buddha, or you have your pantheon of greater and lesser gods and goddesses. And the truth is that the more of a variety of both male and female gods and goddesses you have, the more democratic the belief system. But I don't think anyone (who's reading this, anyway) is trying to say that Christianity has ever been democratic.
Some kid in class asked if Islam was more of a religion or a political movement, to which Campbell simply replied that every religion occupies a political space, inevitably. And then the kid said, "but what about the separation of church and state?" At which point Campbell and I both just started laughing. "What about it?" He pointed out that that the Catholic church, and the Christian church in general is facing a major identity crisis right now; a sexual identity crisis, if you will. The problem of who can be religious leaders has always existed, but right now it is centering around the issue of gay marriage. Campbell said, "there are laws saying that it is wrong, that it is illegal, to be a couple of the same sex. That is the height of intolerance." And he concluded that point with the usual "gays and lesbians are people too." And then... "---isn't that right, Jessica?"
Cue people all over the lecture hall: "I told you she was the biggest dyke ever."
So um... yeah... didn't quite mean to get into all of that.