Airms is cute?

The universe, God, or several people are conspiring to fix my opinion of my appearance. A few minutes ago some student from another campus of my school came knocking on my door trying to sell magazine subscriptions for a fraternity requirement. He was collecting information like “what is your favorite color?” to document the number of people he’d approached–I forgot to mention swallows of any continent. Thus he found out I was single, and harangued for a moment as to how foolish guys here are. Then my peer advisor appeared and warned him that the campus police could slap him with a fine for his activities. So he gave up on trying to sell me magazines and asked me out. Point of order: WTF?

I’m sensitive to this event because recently the most snobbish guy I know informed me that I am attractive and would be hot if only I would dress differently. As he put it, “u’ve got a very nice face and figure, why hide?”

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

What Are You Listening To?

The fan.

The fan can be a sweet thing. Rushing air creates most of the noise, but the beaded chain creates nearly inaudible clic-clic-clic-clicks like a distant fire alarm or wind chime. There is, of course, the whirr of the motor, but I always connect that more with the air temperature than with the rest of the sound mix. It makes it complete.

It’s only a paragraph, but it’s writing, and I wrote it merely on a whim. Things are looking up.

Finished, If Absentmindedly

Mwahaha, I’m done!

Samurai suggests that “mwahaha” is unpronounceable and that “mwuahahah” is what is really being said. While this is true, it is impossible to mispronounce or mistake the meaning of the first, and since the words I am discussing are onomatopoeic anyway, I will continue to omit the U. It is one of the privileges of name creation that one can alter the spelling of the name to suit, witness the fact that Christie can also be spelled Cristy or Kristi. I have yet to see names ending in EE, but I imagine that will eventually come about given the number of people that like to play havoc with preschool teachers.

In any case the fact remains that I am officially finished with my semester. I am done forever with the final that required me to cite…..

I just realized that I forgot to cite more than one movie in the in-class essay that required me to take examples from seven sources (without notes). Strangely, that class was my favorite; we studied interesting material and discussed it thoroughly. Jurassic Park was the most depressing section, which I think is high praise for a literature course.

Grades aside, I am finished with my first semester in college. Whoo.

It’s All Instrumental

I’ve been listening to Joe Satriani, and even if he was most popular when I was about three, I like his guitar playing a lot. It’s gotten me wondering about a few things.

What is the deal with genres of music? I know that they’ve become terribly confused in recent years because so much music is crossover in style. They can be classified by instrument, by technique, by speed, by influence, by form, by rhythm, by chord progression and by time period. I am a music major of some sort, and I can’t keep these straight.

The system that is easiest to keep track of is the one of categorizing by chronology. Even though it’s flawed, it’s the closest thing to an absolute that we have. Because of this, the names of the periods should not be changed. I am not sure who decided that Classical music should no longer be called Classical because the name could be confused with the music of the Greeks. If the name had to be changed, it should have been changed to a different word. Substituting “Classic” for “Classical” is not only confusing, it’s bad grammar.

Because I Must Chatter About Piano Class

My professor is interested in my theory proficiency. My comment about the differences in chord structure between baroque and classical music cut short the general throwing out of ideas which was supposed to continue around the room again, and she seems to look at me a lot when asking questions. I don’t know enough musical terms to answer them intelligently, though; I forgot what “texture” is, or never clearly knew.

The class is shrinking. There are now only six students attending consistently. Two of them I know are sophomores, and one is a grad student. I am not sure whether the other two are, like myself, freshmen, or whether they are quiet on general principle.

We played duets today. We divided into pairs and were given sheet music and fooled around with it for half an hour. We never have to play them again, and we didn’t play them for each other. It was just something to do. I’d prefer that we work things up to performance level, or at least to the level where we perform for the rest of the class, but I enjoyed the activity very much. School sponsored silliness is fun. The upper level students came in as we were thinking about leaving and played for each other. I must make time to sit in on that class. Perhaps if I stay in the back of the auditorium I won’t be noticed.

You Are Doing What?

I met a guy in the middle of a volleyball tournament last week, and I made him guess my major, to the amusement of the PAs. It took about ten minutes before a bystander guessed it. That describes the minority my major is in at this school.

I can say honestly that I like being here. It is not going to look as good on my resume as the other places I considered, only about five people a year graduate with my specialty, and yet it is so far a good fit.

I’m probably more comfortable around nerds than artists. Even the way I dress is closer to that of the CS people than to arts majors. In my class of seven pianists, five wear glasses (including myself).

Running log of today’s challenge

I have a voicemail asking me to go hang out. I do not want to answer this voicemail; I want to sleep. Does this count as being asocial?

Success! I have answered the voicemail. I have explained that I do not care what I eat, since I commonly subsist on tea and cereal. It seems to me that it is easier not to be awkward when saying odd things which make the other person awkward.

I return. How can one argue with a person who insists we only discuss what we can agree on? We end up proving what we both take as given.

Quotes! (Not Funny Ones)

An interesting thought: companies don’t hire college graduates because of the knowledge acquired from college. They do so because someone who has survived college has a functional work ethic.

Also, quotes from a speech that I want to remember (both the speech and the quotes):

• Be not nobody.
• Knowing things is fairly useless without also knowing people.
• Get to know people both above you and below in the academic hierarchy. If you only mentor people, there’s no one to give you recommendations.
• Never burn bridges.
• Never do something merely to destroy a situation.
• Never be too intimidated to seek people out.

I am a living example of how to fail at the last instruction. That is all.

Inherent Funniness

In recent weeks I have become a rabid fan of Doctor Who. I ought not to rant about being unable to memorize things, because I’ve memorized this skit. It was an interesting series of sketches, but I notice that the humor depended almost entirely on the phrase “I ain’t bothered.” Okay, well, neither are we. This is a good opportunity, though, to expand upon the topic of inherently funny words.

There are a few ways a word can become inherently funny. Either it just is or it was once repeated to you by an robotic being, like a parrot, a two-year-old or a freshman suffering from stress-induced mental unhingement. Fish! Midget! Minion! There is always the conventional method of producing amusement–that is, referencing something else.

The blood of my ancestors is on your pancakes!

Practise random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.

We hates them all, precious.

I don’t recall any candidate for President that ever injured himself very much by not talking.

The darkness is always deepest right before it goes pitch-black.

It all makes sense if you don’t think about it.

Sisters

My siblings, I realize, are in the midst of adolescence. But how does this give them leave to invade my room whilst making obscene hand gestures? Also, I’ve no doubts that I was annoying as a fifteen-year-old, but did I ever chatter as much as they do?

Really, this is merely a post made out of annoyance at Rauldy for finding and reading this blog. Back to the drawing board, I guess.