29 January 2011

"Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."
-Oscar Wilde, The Critic as an Artist

28 January 2011

Welcome Back to Highschool: Or, One of the Many Reasons I Hate People

Today was my first full day of classes- it should have been my third, but the snow made break last a little longer than it was supposed to.

I was Pretty Excited Considering about my first class this morning- Acting Shakespeare.  I'd be excited anyway since I love Shakespeare and it really bothered me that the community college I went to didn't have an acting class focusing on Shakespeare (in face, all of the acting professors wouldn't let us do Shakespeare for our projects).  Adding to my excitement was that the class is being taught by one of my favourite professors ever.  I actually had no idea he was teaching it since it was listed as "staff" until a couple days ago.

I had a hell of a time actually finding the room (the fun includes trying to not fall on my face because of all the icy slush.  Slush = evil).  The theater currently shares space with academic services, and it turns out that there are two academic services buildings and I wandered into the one that wasn't also theater and got a weird look when I asked where the frack I was.  Excuse me for being a transfer student.

Upon finding the room I said hi to my professor, who remembered me and said he was excited when he saw my name one the list (I'm sure that I was beaming when he said that).  The fun sort of ends there.  I mean, the class was fun and stuff, but I felt like I was the new kid in highschool again.  Everybody seemed to know each other and I was the odd one out.  To be fair, the guy I ended up sitting next to was nice and one girl did walk up to me after class and introduce herself.
My second class was a billion times worse.
I started not quite feeling "right" toward the last hour of class.  I was pretty darn excited to sample from the cornucopia of food offerings (sushi! coffee! sandwiches! salads! etc!) but by the time class was over and I made my way to the cafeteria I was pretty nauseous.  I ended up just getting some yogurt and Diet Pepsi.
I wandered over to the library to look for some Oscar Wilde books.  I found one that looked interesting in the catalog (The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde), but it took me half-an-hour to find it in the 7 stories of the library.  I had a niceish two hour break reading in a squishy chair.

Repeat the earlier adventure of trying to find the class and evil slippy sludge, except this time I had a gross, too-sweet coffee in my hand.  Whee.
I hate a lot of things about people.  At the top are those weird, high-pitched noises the majority of girls seem to make when they get excited.  Pretty closes to the top is being ignored.
This class (script analysis) was pretty much a repeat of my first day at the tutorial I went to for a very unhappy part of my high school career.  All of the girls made those high-pitched noises every time somebody they knew came in the door.  Everybody completely ignored anybody they didn't know and spent the whole time telling in-jokes.  My favourite part was when they raised their voices to talk about being in rehearsal for the current college show so that everybody could hear them.  Whoopdefuckingdoo.  Now, if you were in a show at the Shakespeare Theatre in DC, I can accept you raising your voice and showing off.  Seriously, it college theatre.  You get cast because the director likes you, not necessarily because you're A Good Actor.  They were also acting in that obnoxious, hyper way that highschoolers seem to think the "theatre kids" should act.  Ugh.
To add to my misery, I thought I was going to throw up when I still had an hour and a half to go.  If I'd been closer to the door I would have sneaked (snuck?) out, but I would have had to creep around the teacher and I decided that it wasn't the way I wanted to start the semester.  I don't know how but I somehow managed to make it through to the end.

I'm sure it will all get better once I actually know people and I'm equally sure it was all made worse by not feeling well.  However, that doesn't make it any less agonizing.  It's like saying "Oh, I'm sure it's just allergies," when someone has a sore throat and feels like shit.  That may be, but it doesn't make them feel any less shitty.

I am now going to get fat on goldfish (the cracker kind) and ginger ale while reading more of the book from the library.

26 January 2011

My very first class of the semester (script analysis!) was today.  Not only is it the first class of the semester, but it was to be my very first class I will have taken at UMBC.

Alas, it was not to be.

I was supposed to get up at 8 o'clock in the morning.  This is, to me, an ungodly hour, so I took a shower and got my clothes (and jewelry!) and books and everything ready before I went to bed (at a decent hour!).  I was ready to do this thing.  After a semester off I was ready to grab the scholastic bull by his learned horns.

Well, after a tortured nights sleep (or lack thereof, I woke up every hour and "Hey Mami" kept playing in my head (damn you, Dance Central!) and my 25 pound beagle was snoring like a 325 pound man) my dad popped his head into my room at 7.30 (people are awake at that hour?!) to say that UMBC was delaying opening until 10, so my class was canceled. (There may be more parentheticals in this paragraph than are allowed by law.)

I had planned on writing a blog entry on my love of Oscar Wilde to do something semi-productive with my unexpected day off, but I spent the day sleeping, eating, and mowing down zombies in Fallout 3: New Vegas.  At least if 2012 turns out to be the Zombie Apocalypse, I will be prepared.

21 January 2011

Blog-Thingbob

I'm not very good at keeping up with anything (homework, especially...), so this will be interesting.

I just started a new job (my first in a couple years) but classes don't start 'til next week, so hopefully between now and then I will actually put something half interesting up. I can't promise anything though...