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I depend on captioning, so reading them is a habit to follow the movie. Here's the cool thing: by watching this movie with the Spanish subtitles, I was really surprised how much of the dialog I was able to catch from the Spanish. It's been like... jeez, eight years plus since I've had Spanish, and apparently I've still got some of it. I'm excited to take Spanish this summer... enough so that I may take more this fall. I'd like to get at least a reading fluency of the language again. In fact, they offer a class for that, but it requires I think three classes first.
Boy, teaching today was an adventure. Technology is a total bitch. I've been incorporating an occasional Powerpoint into my World Geography classes lately to show things that can't be described. For today, I had made up a couple of sharp shows, one about Overseas Filipino Workers and one about the countries of Australia and New Zealand, specifically focusing on their treatment of the natives and the Stolen Generation (a horrible program in which the children of Australian Aborigines were confiscated at birth through the 20th century specifically to kill the Aboriginal culture).
Anyway, I forgot my pigtail (an adapter that allows my Mac to plug into the projection system), and the computer in the room was seriously fucked up. So, I had to teach these things off the top of my head. It was... interesting, but I think I did a decent job. Either way, this proves my general distrust of technology in the classroom is on a firm foundation.
I haven't gotten much done this month at all in terms of my research. It's really frustrating on so many levels. It's incredibly intimidating on a number of levels, because in some ways I feel like the standards are somewhat higher for me than others in the department. I don't know how to explain it since I haven't been told this directly but I feel like there's a lot of expectation on me to do really really well that's maybe not there for everyone else (though I have been told by various people in the past that I am capable of doing "great things" in the discipline, and Mary confirmed the notion of this higher bar this evening). Ugh. It's probably 100% in my head, though, like some sort of martyrhood / zion-figure complex that I've worked up to give myself a false sense of importance so I don't like off myself or quit academics or whatever.
I've finally gotten a little touch of confidence going, though, since I am getting ordered books in from the library now for my dissertation. I got an email today telling me that the Map Library had one of my ordered books. When I went to pick it up, I found nine waiting on me. I'm under water for reading again....
Then again, tonight in the geographic writing class, Jim didn't help by giving a how-to guide for choosing an advisor (maybe I chose too hastily considering how my research epistemologies have changed in the last year, but now I can't burn bridges) and telling us that a dissertation only has to be 200 or so pages. I shouldn't write about these things with more clarity, I guess. I don't know if I'll ever get over this particular hump, though.
With all of the driving I've done lately to go to Kent from home, to Canton from Kent, and Canton to home, I've been actively enjoying "trapping" people. It's hard to describe what trapping is on the road, but I'll do my best.
Let's say that I'm driving in Pedro in the left lane of the interstate, going at a pretty good clip, fast enough that I'm actively passing the slower people in the right lane. Okay, so I'm going along, and some nut decides that either a) they don't like being behind a bug, which happens ALL the time, or b) my 75 mph in the bug just isn't fast enough. So, they come up, tailgate me for a second, and then swerve into the right lane in an attempt to pass me like the idiot they are. This is the fun part: when it just happens that you're about to pass a third car in the slower lane, and the idiot who's trying so hard to pass you (maybe he has to be, or maybe he's just a Get-r-Dun-er?) gets stuck behind the slowpoke and is relegated to swerving lanes again to tailgate you.
Now, the trick is, you can't simply accellerate to a faster speed to create the trap. Sure a gradual little speed-up is okay (1-2 mph) but you can't floor it. Besides, the bug couldn't do it fast enough to matter. Really, it takes a bit of skill and impeccable timing, and it comes off as completely innocent. Trust me, when you're in the car that much alone every week, and everyone (and I do mean everyone) from Ohio drives like a total dumbass, things like this become entertaining. It's especially rewarding when the person you're trapping is someone on a cell phone, someone in a sports car (or overpriced SUV), someone in a ginormous pickup truck (they usually have penis size issues which they try to make up for by driving like an idiot), or anyone with a "Get-R-Dun," "Ain't Skeered," Confederate flag, Calvin peeing on whatever, racing product, George W. Bush or NASCAR number logos stickers.
In fact, it's gotten to the point when Amy and I will comment on each others' trappings as they happen, rooting for each other and giving kudos when the target is especially obnoxious. I guess it's an "us thing."
And I guess this little happiness (and the bug's ability to be an excellent trapping sleeper) makes up for one bad part about being a bug owner. See, even back when I drove a bug in high school, there's always been a sort of kinship amongst bug drivers. If you see another person driving an old school bug, you wave. The same thing happens for Jeeps and sometimes for Harleys.
The bad thing is, in the time between my original driving of a bug and today, when I drive one again, all of these New Beetles have hit the roads. Like, millions of them. Like, every little bimbo drives a New Beetle now. This is irritating, because all of these New Beetle owners think they are a member of this club now. They all wave at me. And you know what? I refuse to wave back to them. Yes, I'll wave at a fellow old bug (and there seem to be about four in the Akron-Kent area besides Pedro, and I've seen all of them on multiple occasions), but not a new one.
Does this make me an elitest? Maybe, and I don't give a shit. You know, driving an old bug requires a lot more effort than a new bug. Those new bugs are nothing more than the little Cabriolet chassis and engine with a cuter body and interior. They're front wheel drive, water-cooled engine in the front, air conditioned (and decently heated), and shit, they probably have a fucking computer in the engine.
All of this is absolute blasphemy to old-bug owners, who suffer through no climate control, obscure (but superior) air-cooled engines that you have to bend over to work on (and remove completely to do much of anything more than oil changes), and the marvelous pendulum effect that comes from having all of the weight in the back with the drive wheels in the winter... all to drive cars we love, and that we love probably a whole lot more (like an old married couple) than new bug owners do theirs (like a one-night stand). They're just two different animals. I don't have anything against the new bugs per se (in fact, I have actively coveted the little red convertible one at the Serpentini on Tallmadge that I drive by on my way to work for at least two months, but sadly it seems to have been purchased in the last week), but they are not the same. Don't try to be in this club without paying the dues, assholes.
Random classmate note: in my gender class, there's this girl who sits across from me (our prof makes us do the half-circle, "Kumbayah" thing) who's pregnant. While having kids is not my cup of tea, and while I consider having kids in college to be somewhat insane, this girl is married and it's her life, etc. But having her in my direct eyeline has been... distracting. At the beginning of the semester, she wasn't showing her expectation very much visibly, and the only way I knew was that she mentioned it in her name-major-rank self-introduction to the class.
Well, as the semester progressed, her boobs got gigantic within like a couple weeks, like you could almost watch the baloons inflate. No biggie, right? Except that she kept wearing these little flimsy shirts with low cut neckline, and no bra. Worst of all, she kept reaching into her neckline and fooling with these things over and over. I know it's because they were bothering her, but in what world is this not at least considered a distraction? I felt bad because it was like some freak show, and it was probably something she couldn't help.
Well, once I finally got used to ignoring that (which was difficult because she was throwing boobs around and it was right in front of me, so even though there was nothing sexual about it, it was something unusual to see out of the corner of your eye and always prompted glances), her stomach also started inflating. Again, no big deal, right? Well, this past couple weeks, she's started sitting there, apparently refusing to take notes while she holds this tummy in various positions with her hands and arms. At various times, she'll grab it and have a random facial expression that makes it look like she's in labor. And she'll hold this for like five minutes, staring into space. Again, I know it's probably because she's not comfortable, but.... jeez. It's really annoying.
And I understand I'm probably being unsensitive. The physicalities of having a baby is something I'll never understand or experience. But... why is this totally acceptable for her to fool with her body in these distracting ways simply because she's carrying a child (something she, as she's said repeatedly, has chosen to do) in the middle of a class?
It is also funny on campus to watch the outfits of students change with the weather. Tuesday and Wednesday were 70 degree days. Naturally, because this is Northeastern Ohio, I woke up today to an inch of snow on the ground.
(I honestly wonder how difficult it would really be for anyone from an actual decent climate to adjust to this mid-continent bullshit. Really.)
What's funny is that girls transitioned from jeans with cankle boots (you know, the ones make of wrinkly leather that are just oh-so-fashionable this year that make girls look like they have cankles? Yes, I made that name up, thankyouverymuch) during the cold to (yes, sad as it is) gaucho shorts with cankle boots in the warm. Now, since the cold snapped back today, no one (apparently) wanted to believe it, so the gaucho pants stayed out.
Go figure.
I have gotten a couple of pieces of good news lately, which is good since everything has been absolute shit for a couple of weeks. Oh, you know, the tortures of my current workload combined with Amy being sick, our Volvo breaking again, our vacuum committing suicide, and our dryer frying itself (which strangely has resulted in our basement looking like the stereotypical big-city alleyway that's home to bunches of poor immigrants in tenement housing).
For one thing, the massive amount of money I spent on late fees at the Kent library (around 60 bucks) was returned to me. In an odd accounting quirk, it seems as though Kent charged my student account for the library fees back in December, and that money was deducted from my financial aid award. But, the money hadn't made it to the library records, so it showed that I still owed. When I paid the money, they noticed that I had paid the fees twice, and they refunded me one back to my checking account.
The other good news is, and I can't emphasize this enough, that Bob Saget is coming to Kent State to do standup comedy next month. We are definitely going to attend, especially because student tickets are only $5. I would seriously kick myself over and over and over and over again if I missed this. I mean, it's BOB SAGET. I couldn't not see him. I used the same justification for when the Dustin Diamond (yes, Screech) comedy show at Ball State a few years ago. And then, we saw him at Applebee's (double barf) afterwards (though, admittedly, my life was a different place back then).
And more good news comes from the fact that our trip to San Francisco is only a month away! CRAZY.
A couple of pop-culture notes before I call this really long note quits for the night. For one, there's a new ad on television for Dairy Queen hamburgers (stick to what you know, people!) that are supposed to be really spicy. People eating this sack of shit are whispering to each other at the beginning of the ad to avoid "problems." Then, someone slips a real word, which is accompanied by a huge plume of fire, which is letting us know how spicy this burger really, really is. Within seconds, these people are all blowing these ridiculous fire plumes at each other, and are all wiggling around like chickens. This ad makes me feel stupider for seeing it. I will never EVER eat a Dairy Queen Spicy Shit-Sandwich now.
Jerks.
Secondly, I was driving home tonight after the writing class and I came across "Lithium" by Nirvana. One thing that struck me as I listened to this was that in some ways, it seems like Nirvana hasn't aged. Now, this may be a function of the fact that Nirvana was the largest band on the planet at the exact time that I began to care about who the largest band on the planet was, and the fact that (especially after Kurt Cobain's untimely death) they've been canonized (and hence overplayed) as the ultimate act of the 1990s that went out on top (even though Pearl Jam had totally overtaken Nirvana in popularity when Cobain offed himself, something no one ever remembers).
I'm sure to my parents, for instance, that Peter, Paul & Mary never sounds aged, either. But maybe Nirvana is different from Peter, Paul & Mary. (Strangely, that statement isn't as understated as you think: very similar song structures and lyrical subjects are found in mainstream folk, punk/grunge and motown... it's just a difference of vocal projection and instrumentation).
If you listen to the music (as I did tonight), you realize that if this music came out today, it'd fit in just fine to the daily playlist of your garden variety alternative rock station (as it did on the radio station that played Nirvana tonight). Maybe we should be depressed at the fact that nothing new has come to mainstream rock and roll since 1992, when Nirvana's new incarnation of slower, sadder, self-loathing and minimalist garage punk (think MC5 on sleeping pills) came on to the scene... and only about a couple months after Guns N Roses' Appetite for Destruction (a final testament to the 1980s rock doctrine of excess and egotism) amazingly enough.
I don't know. I figured out a couple years ago that I thought the whole rock thing was totally played out, which resulted in my embracing of folk music (especially from online sources, ironically folkalley.com from WKSU, which I discovered well before I applied to Kent State). Maybe rock is at its apex?
Maybe not, but there's no more exploration for tonight.
Posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood DJ on March 15, 2007 11:33 PM | Permalink
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