I’m over halfway though my second semester of school and it occurs to me that I haven’t posted anything about my new classes. Time to remedy that, I guess.

I have two classes this semester that I didn’t have in the last one. They’re both English classes, one an Introduction to Prose and Fiction, the other a Reading Popular Culture class. Each class has its ups and its downs, the ups mostly being that they introduce me to new works and then discuss them. The downs being all the same stuff I’ve complained about in other posts about school.

I really don’t enjoy literary analysis. No, that’s not entirely accurate. I don’t enjoy doing literary analysis because I’m told to. If I read something and I’m struck with some opinion that I’d like to discuss, just try to stop me from sharing that opinion (and I’ve picked up plenty of things for writing such opinions in essay form that I quite appreciate). But in these classes you’re expected to force yourself to come up with some opinion and then dress it up like you’re not just doing some homework, but like you actually care. And, furthermore, you’re supposed to frame your essay as though you’re certain about this opinion you’re pretending to care about. You can’t say “I think John Authorington’s use of a radioactive lobster is pretty neat because he also used a giant red monster the other time Protagonist Joe was nervous. I wonder if there’s something to that. Let’s look at the evidence…” but you are absolutely expected to say “Authorington uses the radioactive lobster, and other red monsters, to represent Protagonist Joe’s nervousness FOR ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN JUST LOOK AT ALL THE PROOF…” I don’t care for that. I hate pretending that any of my opinions are absolute certainties even when I care about them. When I’m making up crap just to pass an assignment and I’m expected to act like I’m so committed, I feel terrible about that. At least if I could write about stuff I had an opinion on, I’d be able to at least put some gusto into my arguments.

I suppose the argument from the school’s point of view is that they’re trying to teach you how to do analysis of things you do care about, but they have to teach you somewhere. If you don’t find something to opine about in the works that the teacher is teaching, you can’t expect to get to switch to something the teacher doesn’t know just because that’s what you want to write about. My rebuttal is “Fart sound, middle finger, don’t care, shut up.” It’s the same thing that’s bothered me time and again: I don’t care if the school can tell if I’m learning, I care if I can tell that I’m learning. I know, I know. School doesn’t work that way, I know, but the fact that “school doesn’t work that way” is not a reason for me to stop complaining about it. It is, in fact, the reason I keep complaining about it.

These classes have got me to read a number of short stories and stuff, though, which has been nice. And a couple novels too. Tarzan of the Apes and Oroonoko. I might, conceivably, have wound up reading Tarzan someday, but I had never even heard of Oroonoko, so I’m glad I was introduced to it. I like reading books.

I had some time between classes and didn’t feel like going home. The auditorium where my class would be held was empty, so I thought “Sit there and read” and did that. Then students started showing up and I thought “Hey, I’m not the only one here early.” But then I looked at the time and realized, these were not early students for my class, these were on-time students for the class being held in that room before mine. Whoops!

So I stuck around to see what that class was like.

That class was full of horrible, terrible students. I now have a very keen understanding of how lucky I am to be in the classes I am, because if I were in that class I would likely not still be there. In my classes I am annoyed by the small handful people who whisper long conversations or spend the whole class on Facebook or Twitter or whatever. In this class, a full-year Engineering class apparently, something close to two thirds of the class just speak in regular conversational tone, paying no attention to the lecture. And not even just the people sitting next to each other. They’d call out to other rows. Groups three or four large would gather around laptops and cellphones watching videos. If there ever was a quiet moment, some “clever” wag would find something to shout out seeking a laugh. At one point some guy stood up and just faced the back of the class for what seemed to be a full minute. So anyway, if you’re in ENGI1101 at Dal, I basically hate you.

On another topic entirely, I only just today noticed that I forgot to put of a SecGov page last Thursday. I had the page done and everything. Just forgot. Oh well.

My History class is in the Chemistry Building and my English class is in the Computer Science building. What the chunks? So I’ve just completed my third day of my second semester of my first year. Let’s see what I have to say about that:

I think I’m a little more confident about how well I’m going to do in my classes this year.

Mythology and Astronomy are my only courses that continue on as they were, so I know where I stand in those ones. I’m doing alright and I think I’ll keep doing so. My History class has changed, though. We’ve a new teacher to cover a different time period, and a new classroom for some reason to go with that. I liked our previous classroom (it’s the same auditorium in which my Mythology class was and is held) and don’t understand why what seems to me to be my largest class has been moved to slightly smaller quarters. I’m thinking that this term of History may be slightly easier, though. I’m more familiar with the time period we’ve reached, and also I think there’s one fewer essays to deal with, which leaves more time for other classes, which I will need.

My English class has been replaced with two new English classes. This is where I’m going to be spending most of my time this year. As I’ve already mentioned, I’ve chosen classes wherein I’ve already read, or at least owned, several of the books on the syllabus (Breakfast of Champions, the Maltese Falcon, the Picture of Dorian Grey, Watchmen, etc.) because that’ll save me time, but also I can say I’m genuinely interested in all of those (that’s why I read them), so I’ve got that going for me.

I guess I should cut the rambling here. What I’m trying to say here is, so far things look alright.

So it’s back to school tomorrow. I feel like this is going to be a very busy couple of months. I guess that if dumbass stupid moron kids can do it every year, someone awesome and coolsmart like me should do alright, though. Right? This is jest, of course, but I did kinda get through my first semester with a feeling that I can half-ass it and still do alright. Here’s hoping this second semester doesn’t shatter that illusion. Anyway, hopefully I won’t be too distracted from the site during that time.

Haiku!

Spaceships are not real.
It’s all a Communist lie.
There ain’t no spaceships.

Also, we’ve got our first real stickaround snowfall in the city for this Winter. So now I’ll be trudgin’ through that on my way to school. Just great. Just great.

Also, I need to mention this: My Internet is getting so slow. I have no idea why, but for months it’s been getting slower and slower and now it’s just painful. I don’t know who I’m supposed to punch to fix it, so if anyone knows, just fill me in.

I’ve mentioned numerous times on this site that I’m currently broker than I’ve ever been. Well, that’s still the case. And since I don’t currently have a source of income… well nuts.

So this week I’ve found out how many job application forms I can fill in before my attitude problems start to seep into it. It’s one. One job application form. Luckily, I think I can answer in a such a way that you can’t tell the tone of voice I’m using. Like when they ask “Can we contact employers before your most recent employer for information” and I answer “Yes, though I don’t have contact information for people I worked for a decade ago” they hopefully don’t realize that I’m mentally adding “You FRIGGING IDIOT” to the end.

But, man, my rent is going up in a few months. I don’t care for that at all. But also, upon seeing how much money I made over the Summer, the government decided my student loan should be lessened by about five hundred bucks because they apparently assume I should have more money than I do (they already assumed I had several thousand more than I actually do). I guess next time I’ll look harder for the box I can check that says I was paying nearly a thousand dollars in rent because my terrible roommate did not pay. Thank goodness I have a paying roommate now. It turns out that it is really helpful.

In the meantime, I am also trying to do all kinds of reading for the school year. I’ve got one more class this semester than I did in the last, so I’m expecting to be pretty darn busy. I’m trying to get as much of the reading I need to have done before classes begin. I’m quite a slow reader, so this is not easy. I admit, I chose classes in which I’d already read some material, but there is just so much more to read. I’m pretty sure I can fake some it, but I really am going to try to read as much as I can. And that takes time.