Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Scenes from my life.

I sat down at my lappy, intending to rant on my blog about Valentines' day and eventually spiral into complaining that for some unfathomable reason NO BOYS LIKE ME, but, upon further reflection I decided to save that can o' worms for closer to the actual day in question. So. Here I am, looking for something to rant about. I'm coming up empty.

Well, I suppose I'll give in to my all-pervading narcissism and talk about the mundane events of my life. I'm finished with that lame health class, thank God (and I mean that literally), and have replaced it with Japanese 5. It's amazing how much one can forget in seven or eight months. Not speaking as much as writing. Kanji, in particular. For those who don't know, the Japanese, in keeping with their history of utter craziness, decided to write some words in- why not?- Chinese. So, in order to pass as even mildly proficient, you have to memorize thousands and thousands of characters. At last count, I knew around 100, making me almost as literate as a Japanese first grader. Whoopee. On an increasingly depressing note, I am also taking British Lit. Sounds like an interesting class, with texts I probably would have read on my own anyway, but the catch is that it is the class for Seniors who didn't want to take AP. So, yes. I am in the loser, non-academic Senior English class in addition to the mind-meltingly difficult AP College Lit. Just another perk of getting four years of work done in three. To give you some idea of my plight, I give you a scene from AUBRIANNE: the Musical.

TEACHER: Class, this book is very difficult, but you're all Seniors, so you should be able to handle it. What are some of the things we look for when we read a very difficult, grown-up book like this one?

(A pause. KID IN BACK ROW flicks rubber band as SHALLOW, HOT GIRL, who squeals girlishly. AUBRIANNE, with her head on the desk, raises her hand)

TEACHER: Yes?

AUBRIANNE: (head still on desk) Motifs. Themes. Symbols. Voice. Diction.

TEACHER: (writing these on the board) Very good. Who can tell me what a symbol is?

(A longer pause. SHALLOW, HOT GIRL pulls out her phone under the desk. AUBRIANNE sighs and raises her hand)

AUBRIANNE: (in a monotone, quoting her other English teacher) A concrete representation of an abstract idea.

TEACHER: Excellent. I'm going to put "something that stands for something else" instead, though.

(Lights dim. AUBRIANNE moves downstage and dies of boredom in a spotlight.)


So, yes. That's about how I feel. The sad part is how little embellishment that took. Hopefully, you will accept this as a legitimate excuse for why I have had no deep thoughts for you, my readers. Maybe by summer, I will have managed to thaw my brain out enough to articulate some pearls of wisdom for all y'alls. At the moment, the best I can come up with are things like "Why is it that almost anything you put on toast is good?"

In other news, I finished Psychonauts. Excellent game. Now I'm working on getting all the items you can collect to get a rank of 100. Currently, I'm at 96. Yes, I live a sad and pathetic existence. Also, I finally got around to starting that book Wild at Heart. I had a few double takes, since some of the stuff I've said looks like I ripped it off from that book. Weird.

Edit: Another thing gave me the same double-take kind of feeling can be found here. Ah, cello humor. Good times.