ickle firsties
I have a new hobby: collecting undergrad student T-shirts. I gave curriculum advice (on a particularly tangled curriculum) yesterday to a large, muscular young man wearing a pale pink T-shirt emblazoned "TOKYO LAUNDRY", which, if it's a contemporary pop cultural reference, goes right over my head to the extent where it's completely surreal. The buxom lass with the black-and-white shirt reading "YES, THEY'RE REAL" was somewhat more straightforward. As was the thin, long-haired geeky type (male) whose shirt read, simply, "shaggable", in small, curly letters. (He wasn't).
After the last few days I am in a position to conclude that I still rather like students, even if a lot of them are the stick-thin, wide-eyed, gazelle-type girls, carefully accoutred with skimpy clothing, beautiful tans and a variety of devoted young men, who are most calculated to make me feel old and frumpy. Their tribal dress is getting wilder and more skimpy by the year; if I were digitally camera-enabled I could probably set myself up as a campus rival to Go Fug Yourself, since I suspect that interest value I lost on the lack of celebrities I'd more than make up for in the basic beauty of the subject matter. Youth, as they say, is wasted on the young. Adolescence is, certainly. *considers own wasted adolescence, sighs regretfully*
I am also in a position to conclude that I no longer like Robin McKinley that much. Concentrated into a week of everything she's written in a sort of dizzying high-speed parade, the flaws in her style (memo to self: must work the phrase "emotionally overwrought" into encyclopedia entry) are making me chew the desk and become a misanthrope. Although I suppose re-watching Return of the King didn't help much on the turgid emotion front. Goldarnit, eighth time of watching and the wretched movie still makes me cry.
*goes to bed, miffed*
p.s. today's happy snorts of laughter courtesy of Ursula Vernon's cold-fluffed feathered dinosaurs.
After the last few days I am in a position to conclude that I still rather like students, even if a lot of them are the stick-thin, wide-eyed, gazelle-type girls, carefully accoutred with skimpy clothing, beautiful tans and a variety of devoted young men, who are most calculated to make me feel old and frumpy. Their tribal dress is getting wilder and more skimpy by the year; if I were digitally camera-enabled I could probably set myself up as a campus rival to Go Fug Yourself, since I suspect that interest value I lost on the lack of celebrities I'd more than make up for in the basic beauty of the subject matter. Youth, as they say, is wasted on the young. Adolescence is, certainly. *considers own wasted adolescence, sighs regretfully*
I am also in a position to conclude that I no longer like Robin McKinley that much. Concentrated into a week of everything she's written in a sort of dizzying high-speed parade, the flaws in her style (memo to self: must work the phrase "emotionally overwrought" into encyclopedia entry) are making me chew the desk and become a misanthrope. Although I suppose re-watching Return of the King didn't help much on the turgid emotion front. Goldarnit, eighth time of watching and the wretched movie still makes me cry.
*goes to bed, miffed*
p.s. today's happy snorts of laughter courtesy of Ursula Vernon's cold-fluffed feathered dinosaurs.