Evil Wrapped in a Fangirl Disguise

Fr. Cobb is twistedly awesome. Apparently in his freshman classes he tells his students that statistically they've probably already had the happiest day of their life and it's all down hill from now on. He can prove it with equations. As he told us this he laughed gleefully. He basically admitted doing it just to see their faces.

I would love to sit in on one of those classes.

In other news, I am finished with Buddhist Philosophy! HA.

Having nothing to do with anything, zombie babies are hilarious.

Smallville is not as bad as last season, but it is still on some serious crack. Which I guess it always was, so what I mean to say is that it's less crappy crack than recently. But could Lana just die a painful death already? Geez.

Yesterday SG-1 and Philosophy collided. I was sitting in class not really paying attention (I did really well for about a week and a half!) during discussion of Shibayama's The Gateless Barrier: Zen Comments on the Mumonkan when all of the sudden we're discussing Mumon's poem and I hear, "If you know at once candlelight is fire / The meal has long been cooked." Which is almost exactly what is constantly brought up by Daniel or Ancients when they're being all mystical and stuff. "If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked long ago." It was a weird moment of "Bwah?" for me during class. 'Cause I'm a dork.

I also noticed that the girl who sits in front of me uses "like" every third or fourth word. I started counting at one point and got all the way up to 20-something. At that point it was getting really hard not to just grin stupidly or laugh out loud. I know I use "like" occasionally (I hope), but not nearly as much as she does.

And now for the reason I was posting in the first place...

( SGA - The Return, Part 2 )

For now anyway.

For the past week and change I've had a low level headache every day. It's starting to get annoying. Maybe I need to cut the caffeine out of my diet again?

Natasha and I now have tickets for The Nutcracker December 1! It'll be Natasha's first ballet experience. Woo.

I'm completely at a loss as to what to spend six pages writing about for Philosophy on Wednesday. I know what I'm doing tomorrow! (Nose to the grindstone and all that.)

This week I have a three page paper due in Modernism on Tuesday (covering Heart of Darkness) and a six page paper due in Philosophy on Wednesday (dealing with The Lotus Sutra). The first one is about a third of the way done and the quality is, hmm, arguable. (But then I usually think the quality is arguable.) The one for Philosophy? I have no idea what I'm going to do. I'm considering taking a particular parable and doing a close-reading/analysis of it because I'm fairly decent at those. Or something similar to that but less literary. But we shall see.

At least I can use the two hours of bored sitting in Buddhist Philosophy to work out what I'm going to write about. That should be more constructive than sitting there writing fanfiction.

On a brighter side, Modernism is canceled this Thursday, so my weekend begins Wednesday night when I get off of work. Yea. Maybe I'll use it to marathon Traders. It's just sitting here waiting to be watched. So that can be something to look forward to if I can just get through Wednesday.

I also pre-ordered the pet extension pack for the Sims 2. So there's something else to look forward to.

( Because I'm avoiding work, book meme snagged off Julia )

I should go to bed, but I'm really kind of wired. Which means I should work on my homework for Buddhist Philosophy, but I'm afraid if I read one more page from The Lotus Sutra I am going to cry.

We were supposed to read chapters four through twenty for Monday's class. In this case that's roughly 280 pages. That's not awful given the things I've been expected to read in my literature classes and usually I'd just say "meh" and go back to watching Red Dwarf, but this is different. Every class in Buddhist Philosophy we start after the break with a ten minute presentation summarizing the materials read for that class in an attempt to promote class discussion. Tomorrow's my turn.

I told myself I wasn't going to let it freak me out. That was before I learned that the material I'd have to read was 280 pages (most other people - two before me - only had a chapter/20 pages). I talked to the professor and he said to focus on the first few parables, but that doesn't help me too much considering this is most definitely not a topic I feel comfortable talking about in front of Philosophy/Theology majors. (Although, honestly, I have no idea what they're all studying. I'd comfortable bet it's not English, though, since none of them have been in any of my lit classes.) So I'll be stuck talking about stuff I don't entirely understand in front of people I don't know and feeling like I'm wasting their time. What would be helpful would be if I could think of something interesting to say instead of just summarizing what's been read. Some question I could ask to provoke discussion. Some insight. But that's not really going to happen.

It really all comes back to me wanting people to like me and not think I'm an idiot.

And, yeah, ranting here has helped a little. I will be so glad when it's Tuesday. Except then I'll have to really think about and start the paper on Heart of Darkness that's due Thursday in Modernism.

What I need is to read or watch something really sad and have a good cry.

Modernism in Art and Literature: The class is going to be interesting and challenging. I'm really looking forward to it though. In the end I may end up understanding what's behind people like Picasso and Jackson Pollock. That'd be nice. And maybe come out with a better understanding of The Waste Land. Whatever I get out of it, Tung is amazing. He does tend to ramble a lot, but at least he's amusing.

This time when we had to introduce ourselves with our favorite TV show, of which I have many, I said Coupling. It was either that or out myself as a big geek again with BSG.

Senior Synthesis: Going to be very interesting. We're going to several plays throughout the quarter and I always enjoy that. Besides the two books for the class, Fr. Cobb is providing us with a subscription to The New Yorker, so that will be where a good deal of the reading comes from. So far I've got four different assignments due for Monday.

I'm a little freaked out by the amount of work for Modernism and Senior Synth. I'm hoping that will pass once I get used to going to class and doing assignments again.

Buddhist Philosophy: Should also be interesting. This is my elective class this quarter and part of the reason I signed up for it was that I thought I would be interested in minoring in Philosophy. After yesterday's class, I'm not so sure. It wasn't bad or anything, but I found myself sitting there and longing for a novel and some critical close readings followed by group discussion. So I think I'd much rather spend my senior year taking classes that involve things that I love.

Also, at one point the professor made a philosopher joke and I was the only one that didn't really laugh. Not that I'm a big laugher in class, but this was more of the "I have no idea why that's funny" kind of silence than the "Yes, you are mildly amusing" kind. Although he did talk about the vicious cycle of stupidity and how stupid people don't know they're stupid and do things that just make them more stupid because they're too stupid to know better. Which I totally agree with, but he could have cut down on the amount of stupid in the sentence. He was very repetative.

*

Today Natasha and I went downtown so I could buy BSG 2.5. I also ended up getting the soundtrack for BSG season one and another Regina Spektor CD. Then we saw The Illusionist and I kind of loved it a lot. Perfect fall movie. Jessica Biel was surprisingly good and I already love Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti. Then we came back and I got to watch the season premier of The Office and it was hilarious.

I think I'm going to declare a Philosophy minor.

All registered for fall quarter.

- English 487 - Senior Synthesis w/Father Cobb
Mondays & Wednesdays, 1:30 - 3:35

- Philosophy 315 - Buddhist Philosophy w/Prof. Wirth
Mondays & Wednesdays, 3:45 - 5:50

- English 358 - Modernism in Art & Literature w/Dr. Tung
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 10:00 - 12:05

And, for the third quarter in a row, I succeed in not having classes on Friday. Three day weekends are a good thing.

I was going to take Latin, but I got to thinking about how much more I'd get out of Philosophy and how I only need three classes in the field to have a minor. At first I thought it was two, since I took Gender & Social Reality, but that counted for Interdisciplinary and I don't think it can count as both. So better to get some Philosophy in next quarter. I wasn't going to until recently because I didn't notice the Buddhist class. All of it was Greek and focused on Aristotle and Plato and absolutely not my cup of tea. But after taking Asian religions, this one should be interesting.

(Also, Latin would have screwed up my three day weekends.)

But I'm seriously happy to have made it into Cobb's and Tung's classes. Yea.

( Project Runway - Make It Work )

Natasha went downtown for me yesterday and bought Pride & Prejudice. We watched it after I got off of work. It still makes me go "aww" and flail about more than is entirely dignified. Hee.

Speaking of work, the woman I work with is getting close to strangling the new guy. Seriously. She's ranted to me about him several times and I really can't blame her. It's like he's 30-something going on 12. Which would be okay because I know plenty of people who are 40-/50-something going on 12, but he doesn't even seem to have the courtesy that goes with making it out of high school. And, okay, a lot of people don't get that. But, um, you'd just have to be there.

Which reminds me of the idiot in Ethics. He was the reason for this post. We had a small group discussion going on and I was the recorder (being the youngest). He would say something and I would politely ask him to repeat it because the class was loud and I hadn't quite caught whatever it was he'd said. And he would just stare at me like I was nuts. I also helped him find a book at the library awhile back because he didn't understand how to read call numbers. Or something. Went out of my way to do the work for him and didn't even get a thank you. He just ignored me after I handed the book to him. Frustrating.

Anyway. I should go do something productive.

Today has been almost entirely devoted to staying on top of my classes. (God damn Mythology and it's meaningless assignments.)

I still need to finish my paper on Paradise Lost, do the Theseus/Perseus comparison, write about a family ritual, and study for my Philosophy exam. Mostly I've done nothing but skim/read The King Must Die and work on the paper. It's thrilling, let me tell you. KMD goes from being kind of boring, to rather interesting, back to kind of boring again. I'd love to read it without deadlines.

Did watch an ep of BSG and Dear Frankie today. And the newest ep of Smallville as well as SGA's "Suspicion." Most of that was used for background noise. SV should just do an entire episode where they have no talking, long camera shots, and music playing over. It was a pretty good ep, but they used James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" over the opening scene with Clark and Lana and I am not happy that they've kind of sullied that song for me.

Tonight/Tomorrow I'll be able to get the season finale of SGA. Still have to watch "Michael" and "Inferno." This time I really mean it when I say I'm not going to watch parts of the new one. I don't want to know anything about it until I've seen the last two all the way through and actually sit down to watch it. For once, I want to see the finale without knowing how it's going to turn out.

Last night I had a dream about a little girl who was like Anthony on The Twilight Zone who wished people into the corn field. She could kill you with her brain. Until the parents were pushed a little too far and kind of went insane with fear and killed her. It was creepy and ended in violence. Usually my dreams aren't violent. Natasha, on the other hand, dreamed of Rodney in leather pants.

Ah well, back to work.

So there is some good coming out of my crappy week. Mom ordered me a shiny new laptop from Dell. A shiny new laptap! Woo!

Meanwhile, I'm almost caught up on SGA eps. Just finished watching "The Long Goodbye," which I really kind of dug. Especially the conversation about television at the beginning. ("Depends what's on it. There are lots of programs on dozens of channels every day all day." "Most of which are fictional representations of ridiculously attractive people in absurd situations.") Was amused that, even though it wasn't "The John & Rodney Show," there was still a lot of little things between the two of them. Also, Caldwell has grown on me to the extent that I found him kind of adorable at the beginning and at the end around Weir. He just wants to be accepted! Beckett is growing on me once again. There was a little while there were I'd moved to being kind of "meh" about him, but I'm back to rather liking him quite a bit. Giggled at his, "Well, they're headed straight for divorce."

I going to have to save "Coup d'Etat" for after the weekend though. Sad panda.

Lots of reading to get done this weekend. Paradise Lost, The King Must Die, Utilitarianism, bits of Greek mythology. Taking State of Fear with me in case I want to read for pleasure. Also Serenity to watch. 'Cause Joss, even when he breaks you, makes it all better.

Hopefully I long weekend on my own will help me get completely better.

ETA (12/15/07): ( SGA - The Long Goodbye & Coup d'Etat )