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Ok, before I can post like a normal human being I have to get this off my chest.  So remember my english professor?  The one who is constantly harping on us about how we're all brainwashed, we don't know anything, we're receiving a piss poor education, etc?  Yeah well fuck that guy.

I mean, ok, he's pretty nice when you talk to him before class.  I was asking him some questions about The Aeneid (you know, a book written over 2,000 years ago that has nothing to do with the current politics of this university and/or country?) today, which we've just finished skimming, and he was really helpful.  Then class started, and I thought "Boy, I bet today is actually gonna be pretty productive in here!  He seems to be in a good mood, and he's already thinking about the Aeneid since we were just talking about it.  Awesome."

So we took our quiz on the chapter we had to read for today, handed in our reading journals, and then he asked if we had any questions.  I asked him what Virgil meant when he referred to those that "the Fates owed a second body".  First word out of his mouth was "reincarnation".  Perfect!  That's a term I understand.  Then he went a little further into what qualified a soul for reincarnation (apparently 1,000 years in the underworld), which was interesting and still relevent.  Then he kind of tied it in with our next book, The Divine Comedy.  Ok, that works, since we're starting that over the weekend.  Then, and I don't totally understand how this happened, he was suddenly ranting about how you can't say God doesn't exist because you can't prove he doesn't exist, but we're all taught to be good little followers of science so we just blindly believe it and blah blah blah...for almost 30 minutes.  Literally.

Now, I don't give two shits what you believe - it's not going to change my opinion of you as a person, it's just another facet of your life.  Don't force it on me, I'll do you the same courtesy, and we'll get on just fine.  But seroiusly, what the fuck was that?  The only part about that garbage that was relevant to the class was that it was about God, and the Divine Comedy was written by Dante, who was Christian.  But he took that tiny connection, and suddenly it was (hooray!) another tirade about how everyone is constantly feeding us bullshit, and how they're trying to indoctrinate us.  He even started blabbering on about feminism and how stupid it is.  That had NOTHING to do with ANYTHING!

So finally he finishes his ridiculous speech.  I'm sitting at my desk doodling in my notebook, because I checked out about 5 minutes in.  It's not like that stuff mattered, and I've heard all of it from him before.  And he was like "Ok sorry, got a little excited there.  What was your question?  Did I answer it?" and I was like "Yup."  And then he asked if there were other questions, and by that point I was resigned to not actually learning anything for the day.  So the girl next to me asked another question with a relatively simple answer.  It involves explanation of a few people, but that's ok.  And then he wandered off again, talking about all the Roman emperors.  But you know, at least it was the right era and he wasn't bitching at us.

And then class was over.  That was it.  I wasted 1 hour and 20 minutes of my life  (the other 10 minutes were spent on my quiz and writing out a grocery list).  The worst part is, we go through this song and dance with him every day.  Honestly, when he stays on topic, he's a really good teacher.  He's excited about the material and can put it into terms that we understand (not easy to do with medieval lit).  But when he spends less than half the class period actually discussing the material, then it's not really worth it.

I think he says shit like that because he wants to "shock" us or whatever.  He's like "None of your other professors are gonna say this stuff to you, because they don't want you to know." as he talks about how our military is wonderful and how Barack Obama is not fit to be president and feminism and multiculturalism are bullshit.

And he's right, none of my other professors will.  But do you want to know why?  It's because they're too busy TEACHING THEIR FUCKING CLASSES.  No, we don't discuss current events and what's wrong with the world today in my goddamn math class.  In Econ I'm learning about absolute advantage and PPFs.  My speech professor teaches us good public speaking habits and good listening habits.  The only other professor I have that even mentions current events is my Anthro professor, and all he says about them is that we should stay informed on them.  That's it.  Doesn't tell us what he thinks or that we're wrong.  He just tells us to read the newspaper.

My english professor also likes to ask us questions that he knows nobody will answer.  Then he can be like "You don't know, do you?" or "Nobody's gonna argue with me?  I can see you don't look happy, but nobody's gonna say anything?"  And honestly, next time he does it I'm going to say "No, I am not going to argue with you.  I am not paying $3,500 a semester to come to class and argue with you.  I am paying $3,500 to come to class and learn from you.  So please teach me."

Either that or I'll just set fire to my desk and walk out.

/Rant.

Woo, I feel a lot better.  But now I'm all blogged out, so I will try to keep this short.  Apart from being ridiculously frustrated, I've had a pretty great day.  I was done with class at 11:10, had an awesome buffalo chicken sandwich for lunch, and I made meatballs and mashed potatoes for dinner, which was AMAZING.  I was so sure I was gonna fuck it up, but I did not.  Also, I studied math and did practice problems for an hour and a half.  I actually feel prepared for our quiz tomorrow.  This has been an unprecedented level of productivity.

This weekend my younger brothers are coming down to visit and to bring me my copy of Gears of War 3 (YAYYYYYY!!!), so that will be pretty baller.  But that also means I've got to be even more productive tomorrow and get the apartment cleaned and my Econ homework done before they get here.  Thankfully, they aren't going to show up til about 11pm.  And I think on Saturday Andy is going to come over and play games with us.  I can't wait.

Sorry about the grumpy post, but I can't blow up like that in class, and I was getting worried that my head was going to explode.  Now I'm much happier.  I think it's time to play a little Saints Row before bed.

Sweet dreams, darlings.

*Obligatory Rebecca Black Reference*

Ahhh Friday.  It's been a long time since the day being Friday actually meant something to me.  I mean, I still have to go to work tomorrow and everything, but I don't have school, and that is pretty glorious.  Frriiiiddaaaayyy.

Kelly's has beer gardens tonight.  I kind of want to go, but I couldn't find anybody to go with.  Zach is working, Jenn has a pregnant friend visiting, and I didn't hear much from Heather or Brittany, but that's ok.  It's probably best that I don't do anything too crazy since I have to work tomorrow anyway.  Plus, sitting home is not a thing I get to do very often anymore.  So I'm just chilling with the kitties.

All day I've been thinking about Bioshock and how I want to play it again.  For those who aren't familiar with it, Bioshock is a sweet first-person shooter that came out in 2007.  It tells the story of a guy who gets in a plane crash and ends up wandering this desolate, ruined underwater utopia called Rapture.  People still live  there...or something close to people.  I'm not talking about zombies.  These things are humans that have basically lost all their humanity.  They are crazy and scary and want to kill you.  But you get plasmids, which are pretty much super powers, but they rely on you continuing to inject yourself with something called "Eve".

Anyway, it's dark and scary and, at least in 2007, was a thing that really hadn't been done before.  Yes there are billions of first-person shooters, but the story here was pretty different.  And for being 4 years old it is certainly aging gracefully.  It's had one sequel already (that was good, but nothing really ever matches up to the original), and there's another one on the way for next year (I think?).  Pretty stoked.

So that is what I think I will do with this Friday night.  I will pretend to clean the apt a little (it's so much harder to keep up when I'm not home all day.  Plus I have no ambition to do it since I never have guests), and then I will abandon all pretense and just play Bioshock.

Cheers!

What Is This? I Don't Even...

It has been a little while since I posted.  Honestly, I got a little bit wrapped up in this "getting an education" thing I'm trying out.  And so far?  All good.  Well...mostly good.  I'm having some issues with my English prof - namely that he spends about 50% of the class period telling us how the other professors are brainwashing us with their Marxist/Feminist agendas and not really teaching.  Oh, really?  Because it kinda seems like you're just talking shit about your colleagues and not really teaching.  Huh.

Other than that nonsense, though, I really can't complain.  My campus job is awesome (bulletin boards for three days.  Best ever), my classes (with that one exception) are awesome, Family Video is awesome, and my kitties are awesome.

Hey speaking of that, Honey seems to be recovering from his little adventure just fine.  We have a re-check appointment next week, but then he should be good to go.  The doc saved the eyelids in case I wanted to have them tested to find out for sure what they are.  I considered it, but then I made a decision.  It was probably the most mature decision I've had to make in that usually my dad would have had to do this.

I told them not to send them in.  Really, how much better would it be to find out that the tumor was, say, an aggressive form of cancer, than to just not know?  Honey is at least 14 years old.  If we're being realistic, he's maybe got 3 or 4 years left (I'm always hopeful, but seriously).  So if I found out it was cancer, then there would be the question of do we want to treat it with chemo.  And I realized that, at his age, it would just be cruel for me to make a call like that and completely destroy his quality of life, especially since he is so old.  If this were Naughty, who is roughly 3, it would probably be a different story.  But I am just not going to put Honey through that, and so we shall remain blissfully ignorant.

I'm starting to make friends at work.  This is great because not only does it improve my working experience, but I also have people to actually hang out with now.  Not that I can't spend time with my friends that already live here, but many of them have "grown-up" jobs, so it's hard to find the time.

Anyway, this weekend I got to go out with Jenn and Zach and one(?) of their roommates and a couple of their friends.  We had a really nice time on Main at a couple bars.  I got really excited when I found out that their roommate Isaiah is the artist/author of the web comic Nuclear Delight.  It is so awesome.  If you've never read it, I suggest you do so here.  Go on, I'll wait for you.

Are you back?  Great.  Wasn't that nifty?  The guy is a genius.

And speaking of genius, I have constructed yet another masterpiece this evening.  But first, a little back story. See, when I was in college the first time (2006), I bought a Hello Kitty coloring book at Walmart as a joke when I went there with my roommate.  My brother Nathan was coming down to visit just after his birthday (he had turned 21), so I did the college student thing and bought him a shirt at the bookstore.  Then I went hunting for a card.  I couldn't find one that I liked, so I decided to make him one with pictures cut from my Hello Kitty coloring book, some construction paper I borrowed from the Hall Gov office (don't worry, I was the OSA rep - totally legit), colored pencils, and rubber cement.

And so a tradition was born.  Now every year I am tasked with making a new card that is more awesome than the one preceding it.  It doesn't sound like much work, but this project can span several days if I don't plan it well enough.  I pulled out all the stops this year.  I leave you tonight with the final product:

Good night, friends and lovers.

Honey, Honey...

So here's a story from like two weeks ago that I didn't write about.  As previously mentioned, I have two cats.  One of them (Honey) is roughly 14 years old, the other (Naughty or Battlecat 2.0) is about 3.  A couple weeks ago I noticed that Honey's eyes looked kind of jacked up.  One was all runny  and the other just looked really irritated at the inside corner.  I took him to the vet, and after some poking and prodding that was very hard to watch (including stretching out his inner eyelid with a tweezers uggghhhh), the vet determined that his inner eyelid has a tumor on it.  Wtf?

I dropped him off this morning to have the eyelid surgically removed.  I'm pretty proud of myself, I didn't even cry when I handed him off to the receptionist.  I wanted to - he looked at me like I was totally abandoning him, and I am terrified that some day I will have to take him in to get put down - but I didn't.  Instead I pacified myself by going to Walmart and buying him some catnip, treats, and a new toy.  My mom always bought me and my brothers a treat or a toy when we had to go to the doctor, so this seems fitting.

They told me I can call around 11:30 to see how it went, and then call back at about 2:30 to find out if I can bring him home today.  If he doesn't come out of the anesthesia well they'll keep him over night, but that would blow because I have class all day tomorrow and work immediately after, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  I know the surgery is minor and I'm sure everything will be fine, but I am still nervous.  Blargh.

On a positive note, I start school tomorrow.  I'm really excited about it, but a little scared too.  Today they're doing a thing called Taste of Oshkosh, which is where all the student organizations set up booths outside and you can walk around and learn about them and sign up.  A couple friends of mine are going, so I think I'll go when they do.  I also have to drop off some paperwork for my campus job, which also starts tomorrow.  I went for a stroll around campus the other night to reacquaint myself with it and took a couple pictures.

 That's the library, Polk, where I'm sure I'll spend a lot of time come finals.  And I like how they have these neat old timey lamp posts all over-

It's funny how I was a freshman here five years ago, and now I'm finally back to finish my adventure.  I am beyond excited about this. 

Since I keep changing the subject, I was watching Futurama yesterday and heard one of my most favorite Bender lines ever.  He is afraid that nobody will remember him when he's gone, so he graffitis a wall like so -

and then he says "There.  Now no one will forget how I lived or my attitude regarding butt."

Amazing.

And lastly, I leave you with a picture of my Honey.  Please forgive the horrible lighting and the shitty quality, I took it on my phone at 2am.  It was just so cute, he laid down next to me and put his paw right in my hand.

It's gonna be a long day : /