Eh, it’s been two weeks since I have posted anything. There is no much to report, really– my life has reached a homeostasis in which my day consists of waking up promptly at 9, attending class, coming home and eating lunch, taking a nap, doing school work, Auctionworking, eating dinner, watching an hour or so of television, then passing out at about 1 or 2 AM. I love routine– don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I want a little more out of life. I think the humdrum of my life has dampened my artistic spirit and dried up my creative juices. So I implore you, lowly reader, pardon the perfunctoriness of this post.
My classes are going as well as can be expected. In E3K, we have moved on from the morbid John Keats to the 16th century smut poet, John Donne. Seriously, half his poems are veiled propositions to women. I am thankful for the change in authors, although the work has not gotten much easier. Writing page after page about the use of conceit in one poem gets old very, very quickly. After Donne, we’re discussing Hamlet, so that should be pretty cool.
My folklore class is finally getting interesting. We’ve stopped talking ad nauseum about the manifest and latent functions of folklore and have started discussing various genres of it. Currently, we are discussing legends. . .unfortunately, I can never remember any legends, but I could probably make one up. I’ve been known to tell a tall tale or two in my day. I still spend half my time in that class doodling and day-dreaming, but the class moves at such a pace that even a guy in a coma wouldn’t miss a beat. A midterm is approaching, however. I have a feeling that I may be paying a bit more attention in the next few classes.
Oral Lit is by far my most interesting class. It is the first time this class has ever been taught, so the instructor is still fleshing out the cirriculum. Because I’m in the guinea-pig class, that means that the workload thus far has been minimal. To date, we’ve had no assignments. While this is a good thing in certain aspects, it means that those two papers I have to write will have to be incredible. And my paper-writing track record at UGA thus far has been a mixed bag. I am averaging in the average range. I am used to getting stellar grades on my written output, and seeing a 79 or 83 as a grade has been difficult for me. Dr. Traore is from a West African ethnicity whose name I cannot recall nor could I type with this keyboard. Listening to his take on so-called western civilization has been such fun. These peoples tell their oral histories and folk-stories at certain times of the year and only during the evening after dinner. The evening opens with riddles told by the youngest members of the family, and as the night wears on, the stories get progressively longer, more majestic, and more dramatic; the story-tellers also get older. Dr. Traore told us a couple of the riddles they tell, and our American minds simply could not grasp them.
From Thursday’s class:
Dr. Traore: I called Matthew, and Justin answered. [Matthew and Justin being kids in our class.]
Class: …
Dr. Traore: I called Matthew, and Justin answered.
Me: A wrong number?
Matthew: …like on the telephone?
Dr. Traore: Ha! We don’t have phones where I come from.
We didn’t understand the riddle, and after a few more guesses that were pretty similar to Matthew’s and mine, he told us another one– related to the first.
Dr. Traore: I went to the bathroom for big business, and small business came first.
Class: (laughter)
Some girl: How’s that related to the first one?
Matthew: I’m “big business.”
After a few more riddles that we didn’t get, another kid asked Dr. Traore what was a joke in his culture. His response? President Bush. The entire class enjoyed that one.
LATINA EST BITCHA MEA. My love of the defunct tongue has come back. It took a couple weeks to get my bearings back, but I have reacclimated myself to Latin. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about Latin…I love it. There’s nothing I enjoy more than translating a passage about Laocoon’s death or Cicero’s admonitions against Cataline. I’ve probably earned the distaste of the rest of my class with my attitude and flawless translations, but I don’t care…the teacher likes me. Oh well, I say. My Latin teacher at Pius nailed it when he said “MO (for some unknown reason, I allowed myself to be called by my initials back then), you’re truly a Roman at heart.” If a Classics major weren’t so damn useless, I would seriously consider it.
Biology, my nemesis. I have never been much of a biological science fan, and this class has done nothing but solidify that sentiment. I’ll make it through the class, but it’s definitely going to take some work. We’re studying cellular metabolism at the moment, and I’m lost. Krebs’ cycles, ATP, ADP, NAD+, NADH, et al…I simply don’t get it. Then again, I’ve only attended the lectures and find myself getting distracted by the kids sleeping or playing games on their cell phones. I’m going to actually read the chapter on Monday, so hopefully things will be more lucid then.
And there you have it. That’s my academic life in a nutshell. Right now, I am going to get Monday’s Latin assignment knocked out, so I can devote tomorrow and Saturday to John Donne.
Keep it real, Reduxers.
Currently playing on WMWO: War – “Spill the Wine” & frat boys chanting something outside my window