RaggedyAndroid

So much nothing to say. Homework is cumbersome.

It’s funny to watch Buffy with Chad. There is something about it that reminds me of hanging out with Sixpence. Sixpence always notices when someone wears New Rock boots. Likewise, Chad always points out when Xander wear Diesel. He went as far to mention that the clothing was from before the company changed their logo. He admits that that makes him pretty gay.

Planning to go to Alcatraz and see a movie on Saturday and meet with college friends the following weekend. Other than looking forward to the weekends, school is pretty much my life.

I’m also now getting email notices about the upcoming fall semester. I got my TA and office assignment. I think I mentioned this once before, but I’m nervous that I will be assisting with Latin American history, when I don’t know of any other medievalist that ever had to do anything besides Western Civ. I’m not sure how to grade and lead discussions on a topic I know nothing about. Fake it.

Skipped game today to do homework. Still not done with it. It’s 12:30. And I still haven’t been able to crack open Harry Potter. When am I going to get up to speed on this reading Latin thing? Yeah, you can say “it’s only been 7 weeks,” but I can say “it’s the expectation that we should be able to do it.”

Today was chock full of ups and downs.

How to cash a money order in San Francisco:
1) try several banks; however, they will not cash it
2) sign the money order over to a friend that works at a bank
3) wait for friend to tell you that they wouldn’t cash it without your presence
4) go together to cash it; you will be declined, so try several branches; it’s good exercise
5) give in and go to a check-cashing place that will charge you an arm and a leg
6) be surprised when they also won’t cash it
7) go to Western Union; keep trying, because the third branch you try will actually do it after they check your credit rating and fax corporate to get you approved
8) now you can afford lunch and a bus pass

Today we visited the Mission and the Castro. Lots of shopping (I like to shop vicariously through Chad and Hann). I got hit on by a tranny (m2w). She came up to me while I was looking at something in a store and said something like, “I wanted to see what you looking at because you look like someone with good taste.” The smart-ass in me wanted to say, “My Walmart corduroys are a giveaway,” but I said “I’m looking at that cool necklace.” She asked me if I knew where the cute girls are, and then said to Chad and Hann, “You better say ‘right next to us’.” We chatted for a short bit because she was asking where we hang out, and we admitted to being homebodies and that I spent almost all my time doing homework. The chat lasted about 3 minutes, and then we looked at the merchandise for a few moments and she left.

Had some pretty yummy Korean food last night and stopped at a yummy dessert place today. For lunch, Chad had planned on taking me to Mexican place that had been recommended to him, but as we walked by a Popeye’s, we both looked at each with that look that said “we should really get Popeye’s”. Then we said out loud “we should really get Popeye’s”.

“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” —Mark Twain

Clare: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquichicken.
Chad: Our chief weapon is *clearly* surprise.

Tonight was the best convivium so far. It was about Greek theater and music. The lector started by going over some snippets of ancient plays, including satire. He then showed photos of art depicting musicians and actors. He concluded by playing some music tracks, most of which I was actually familiar with in some way or another. But at the wine and eats portion of the gathering, the lector surprised us with a performance of a short parody of a Greek tragedy.

Well, the reading portion of the course is a whole new thing. Our instructor is a really nice guy and our class seems to have a good dynamic, but that’s in part to our shared misery. We spend numerous hours in homework only to come up with shabby translations of St. Augustine or St. Jerome. Fortunately, we are moving on to more spicy matieral, such as St. Columba vs. the Loch Ness Monster. In Ovid, we’ve finished Apollo & Daphne and moved on to Pyramus & Thisbe, which makes me think of the Kevin Kline version of Midsummer.

Dinner time (yes, I know it’s 10:30pm).

Some friends of mine are going to Scotland for the Edinburgh Tattoo, and the following link is a clip of a recent gig (they are dressed oddly because they have already shipped their uniforms). At 0:37 they start a song I really like, “Clumsy Lover,” (and I like in general; this may be the first time I heard fife & drum do it) and the drum part is pretty rockin’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT7tAaRuGMo

Best of luck, Kerri, Lacey & Marla!

Ok, I bought the Harry Potter book today out of fear that if I didn’t read it ASAP everyone who had read it would spoil it. Hann said that people have already been spoiling it on WoW. He said it was human nature to spoil things for other people. It was sitting by the checkout at the school bookstore when I walked in to buy a spiral notebook. When I checked out, the gal asked “did you find everything you were looking for?” and I answered “yes, and then some.”

Saturday we went to Chad’s sifu’s 79th birthday luncheon. Then the rest of the day we were lazy. Chad just got a Wii, and so there has been some Zelda action going on. Sunday we went to game, but the fellow who hosts has too many animals. I took some allergy meds and was in a daze for most of the game. We wrapped up the evening watching Sixteen Candles.

Today we started Phase 2 of the class. In the morning we have a prose reading course, for which I chose medieval readings, and in the afternoon we have poetry, for which I chose Ovid. The classes are shorter (2 hours each rather than 3) but the homework is longer :/

I chatted with Dan after class. As much as I have an issue with people desperately grasping for attention in obnoxious ways, he is even crankier and more vocal about it. He was commenting on the few people in our class that are always making off-hand comments to flaunt their knowledge. He described it, if I can recall it correctly, as standing at the urinal of academia and taking sneaky peeks.

My friend Lauren from class took some pictures on Friday and emailed them to me to post. Hers are better than mine were.

Now it’s time to start my homework…..

Random crap:

Animals are not accessories. They don’t below in purses, they don’t need to match your outfit. I am actually a bit disgusted at some of the dogs I’ve seen around the neighborhood, kinda like seeing that fetal pig in the biology lab, just an ick factor. I have seen dogs bred to stand about 6″-8″ tall. I saw one tiny little thing that almost tipped right over when it lifted it’s leg to pee. Can you imagine being bred so rickety that you can’t keep your balance while using the bathroom? It kinda made me laugh inside, but it’s still kinda sad. And then there are the ones that are so molecularly unstable that they quiver; they appear as if they were on the brink of death, some Brundlefly agglomeration that just won’t survive. There was this one “dog” that stood about 10″ tall, 8″ of which were leg. The legs themselves were no thicker than pretzel sticks but disproportionately longer, and it trembled as if someone trying stilts for the first time, its brundledoggy “knees” bent inward in a manner that made me cringe. It could barely walk, and some middle-aged name-brand woman was dragging it along obliviously.

Immaturity:

So, more than a few times, a classmate has rubbed the rest of the class the wrong way by seeking attention through verbose injections about things that they know. This grubbing for attention has been deemed immature by my classmate Dan. A discussion has come to pass concerning a response to such behavior, and the conclusion was to respond to immature behavior with immature behavior. Dan has proposed the “wedgie” and I suggested the “yokozuna” as an alternative. Either could be accompanied by a resounding “vae victus!”

Back to school:

(starring Rodney Dangerfield) We had our “midterm” today, which was our last grammar exam. It was reassuring that everyone was devastated by it. I felt my average level of despair, which was proportionately better than how everyone else felt. After the exam, several of us went for lunch/drinks and had a fun gab session. After that, I walked around for a couple hours until the lecture at 4pm. After that, we hung out at the convivium for nearly 3 hours (just enough for me to collect to whole set of mosquito bites). Then we went out for drinks/food. It was a rather nice evening, but I’m glad to just be sitting on the couch right now. I uploaded some photos.

This garnered some laughs this evening.

I think that’s it for now. I don’t wanna think no more.

PS. I totally slept through an earthquake last night. Actually, I slept through a lot. I guess the people upstairs were really loud, and Chad had to go upstairs about 4:30 am and ask them to be quiet. Minutes later, there was an earthquake. I slept through it. The earthquake was enough to throw off most people in class today. It was such a weird day for everyone. My train was 20 minutes delayed this morning, and there was a verbal argument that I thought was going to evolve into a physical fight, but it moved into another train car before anything started. My friend Lauren from class said she saw a big chicken hanging out in someone’s lawn near campus today (I guess there were two more chickens sighted). She also received a package today that had been cut open, nothing removed, but a dingy but new bottle of Bath and Body Works lotion and five mixed tapes labeled in English and Chinese has been inserted into the package before it had been resealed. Weird day.

I was searching for De Mulieribus Claris by Giovanni Boccaccio on Amazon and when searching the author’s name it came up with a Caddie Woodlawn book. I guess some illustrator has the same name, but it totally threw me for a moment.

Tomorrow is the midterm, which is the last grammar exam. Monday we start prose and poetry reading. Today was the last quiz. The last day for daily disappointment. My ego is the size of a dried pea. At least in this form it can last a while in the pantry, and maybe some day I can reconstitute it and make a soup out of it.
Yesterday I decided to count how far up the last two tough hill blocks of my walk are. Each block is 6 stories. So 12 stories over 2 blocks. In that context, I don’t feel so bad that I still get somewhat winded, even after 5.5 weeks.

I’m beginning to think that I am a bumbling idiot. I can’t think of any other reason why the majority of my class is doing remarkably well and I am working 4 hours a night just to squeeze out a C. What’s more humiliating is that everyday they put people’s quizzes on their desks face up. When every desk around me had a sticker and I had a 55%, I just wanted to cry.

I’m so tired. I don’t know what to do anymore.

I can’t even imagine what the instructors must think. Both to my relief and to my embarrassment, the instructor didn’t call on me to translate a sentence after handing back my quiz. And classmates complain about the work and still ace it. They get no sympathy from me.

I’m so tired.