It Asked For Wrinklefish

I got two things yesterday. First was my electric bill, which came to $37.92, a good $3 under the average. The second was my signed first edition copy of Only Revolutions, Danielewski's sophomore effort. Yes, I know there's no reason to own that. But guess what? I do anyway. So HA.

Something that I very much recommend everyone do at some point is watch TV while listening to classical music. Last night we watched Dirty Jobs and an episode of Nova while listening to Four Seasons, and a while it back it was a show about Woodstock with Serenade For Strings. Things will match up, and it is far too much fun.

Also speaking of getting new things, my partner for the oral exam in french keeps changing. Not through any thought on the part of my partners, but the fact that my teacher keeps changing the groups. I think it's solid now though. Apparently we will be having an oral exam every Friday until the end of the term.

Yes, this is late. Speaking of late things, I should get going. My bus gets here pretty soon.

Devoirs Pour Demain

I woke up at 9:30 today. That's bad on Mondays. Also Wednesdays and Fridays. Any guesses why? No? Wow, really riveted crowd I've got here. It's because I have class at 9:00. My general wake up time is 7:30, which gives me adequate time to rise, bathe, sate, walk, and wait. The point here is that I missed writing, which is indeed not a good thing. Missing philosophy (which is right after writing at 10:00) I could care less about. It really is a boring class. A philosophy class should never be lecture based; that defeats a portion of the point of the thing.

Moving on to 2:00 this afternoon, I arrived in french the usual minute before class begins. We got our scores for our oral exam, as well as our chapter tests back. As anticipated in a prior posting, I got a C on my test with 77%. On my oral exam, I got a 37.5 out of 40. For said exam, we were allowed to take in notes written in english. I was going to post a picture of them, but it was huge. Instead, I transcribe them:

Hi!
Hi!
Name?
Name! Yours?
Name! How are you?
Good! You?
Good! Student?
Student! You?
Student! Classes?
Classes!
Like them?
Maybe! You?
Maybe!
Portland?
Nope. You?
Yep!
Weekend activities?
Weekend activities!
Dance time! Bye!
Bye!

Myself, I had a good handle on everything we were saying. These were more for my partner, Chris Griffith (I call him (though not to his face) Kind Bearded Chris). I lost my 2.5 points for accidentally saying the past tense form of something. Damnable past, ruining everything.

(She's So) Boring

So I'm behind again. No class today except for French, and it being post-test, I hoped it would be low-key since I'm a bit behind. But lo! It was not. We went over family members and days of the week. I've no idea how those are possibly related, but so are the ways of learning languages. On the way to said class, there was a guido to my left, something best described as Tom Arnold to my right, and a woman who smelled chokingly of chili. My god, the chili. Blue Oyster Cult couldn't stop me from being throttled by this woman's stench. No, I don't know how to get an umlaut on here, and I'm not going to take the time to figure it out. I don't know how she left her home thinking that that was an acceptable way for anyone to smell. It is baffling. It is pointless to ponder on. It was murderous, most foul, malodorous, she was maladroit. I've spent this large portion of this posting railing on about this cretin's stink because it doesn't leave my nostrils. I've taken two showers and it's still there. I'd compare it to how when someone is forced to kill a loved one, every time afterward they close their eyes, they see the pleading, begging, bloodied face of this person of great importance to them as their life is poured out on to the floorboads of that rickety old ship that hosted their first fishing trip together, way back when.

Day Late, Change to Spare

So it seems I was very quickly derailed from my goal of one blog a day. However, I counter this with the fact that I was one blog ahead anyway, thus cancelling out my ineptitude. Also, Jaime showed up pretty much right when I got back from French, and we didn't part ways until pert' near 11:30. Speaking of French, we had a chapter test on modules 1 and 2. Yes, I realize that means nothing to anyone. I think it went pretty well. Definitely got a C, but I think I may have gotten a B. I know an A is out of the question because I didn't know anything beforehand about the Sorbonne. I do now.

So Jaime picked us up and we went back to his house, at which point he made minestrone, palenta, and a salad, alongside which was served rosemary foccaccia bread that he had also made. Jaime's a really good cook. Post-meal activities included listening to anarchist essays, engaging in discourse about the government and what it can do and already has done that will eventually (Jaime says in the next five years) put us under martial law, discussing revolution, arguing about the fate of neanderthals, my hope to one day own Bouvet Island, Twitch's plan to build and authentically man a pirate ship, agreeing that capitalism is a terrible system, messed around with Rosetta Stone, 'n' sitch. Jaime gave Chris some material to read that I shall be partaking of as well.

At this point (roughly 10:00) we went to Market of Choice and bought gelato. We then came to our apartment, ate said gelato, spoke more on some prior touched on subjects, and then I checked the mail. There was a cat sitting by the laundry room. When I walked by on my way to the mail, it hated me. On my return trip, it was freakishly affectionate. I gave it some attention, but on my way to return to my home it began meowing pitifully as cats do so well. Even so, I left it be. Chris and I both gave Jaime material to read at this point (Doors of Perception and Shutter Island from Chris, Unabomber Manifesto from me), and parted ways. Chris and I sat around and didn't do much after that. Then I went to sleep.

A-Walk Walk Walkin'

Today I had a conference with my Writing 122 teacher. She set up conferences with each student, something put a little further into the front of my brain by the fact that I forgot we had no class on Monday and showed up to find an empty classroom and another student who had done the same. We both made what could be called in circles with different standards jokes. Rather, we more laughed awkwardly at passed statements as we quickly went our separate ways, I being nothing like his sporty regulars. Nice guy though. I went and waited for the 79x to make its loop and return me home. I was listening, I believe, to Audrye Sessions' first album, Braille. Their eponymous album certainly has more poppy staying power and catchiness, but Braille is definitely better. The Crows Came In and All I Need? Go home, Turn Me Off and Awake. I also wrote while waiting. People were very clearly reading what I was writing, so I began to rail against minorities something fierce. They stopped reading at that point, except for one guy that just kept nodding. Then I wrote a poem, and he stopped looking too. The bus showed up, I got on, waited, got off one stop early just because, walked home, came inside, sat down, and did something.

Today, I missed the bus that would've had me a good twenty minutes early for my conference, so I had to wait for the 10:54 79x. Now my conference was at 11:20, and it's roughly an eight minute bus ride, so I should've been fine. But no. This guy took seven minutes to make the three minute loop of the apartment complexes, putting things at 11:01. Then he somehow managed to take five minutes to make the one minute trip from the last stop to the bridge, putting us at 11:06. The only reason I can list his times with relative accuracy is because I was listening to Beck's Guero, an album I have mostly memorized both lyrically and length-wise. Around this point, I realized I would be late and apologies and explanations (read: excuses) would be in order. But maybe I'd be lucky and something similar would havve happened to someone ahead of me, so that things would be backed up and I'd be on time. Sure, it was a pipe dream, but I had that dream anyway. We finally arrived at UO station at an inexplicable 11:27, at which point I rapidly got off of the bus and began to walk toward my classroom. It was about two minutes into the campus that I realized these conferences would not be held in our classroom, but in my teacher's office. It was also at this point that I realized that I have no idea where her office is. My blinding failures in logic and transit colliding, I walked back to UO station to wait for the 79x to return and return me to my place of residence. I moved on to Midnite Vultures when Guero was finished. Gotta love Nicotine & Gravy. I do, that is.