Even if I never had any other use for college courses, I�ve discovered they are invaluable for two things:

Assignments and deadlines�a lot of the stuff I�ve learned over the past few months I could have learned on my own. But I WOULDN�T have... because unless there is an assignment to get me started, and a deadline to make me finish, I will quit any educational project just as soon as I hit the hard part. On my own, I�d have wadded up my self-portrait and threw it in the trash about the third time I couldn�t get the mouth right. Who knew that try #20 would be the good one?

Pronunciation�An inadvertant side effect of being a voracious reader is that, while one manages to learn a little about a lot of things, the one thing lacking in the self-educational process is knowledge of the correct pronunciation of the names and terms one encounters along the way. Case in point... this weekend the Prince and I were walking around downtown Naperville looking at the display of theme-decorated bear sculptures. Not being an art-oriented person, when we came upon a lovely bear done up like a ballerina, the Prince wondered aloud why she was called the �Degas Bear.� I was able to explain that Degas was an artist famous for his drawings and paintings of ballerinas, but had to admit I wasn�t sure of the pronunciation. Quite coincidentally, the next day in my drawing class my teacher made a reference to drawings by someone called Degah... oh, DEGAS! So that�s how you say it!

It is just that sort of revelation that makes college classes seem like they might just be worth all the aggravation involved. It sucks having knowledge that you are afraid to communicate in intelligent company because you learned it from a book and have no idea how to say what you know. And I shudder to think of the dumb stuff I say that it hasn�t even occurred to me that I might be saying wrong! It is my firm belief that all educational and reference-type books should contain a pronunciation key as a public service for all the autodidacts of the world.

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I think I may have discovered a dirty little secret about the teacher of my Paper class. I don�t think he checks the homework! I had seriously miscalculated the extent of the homework assignment for Monday, and so I wound up busting my ass for two hours at the last minute, trying to skim two chapters of the textbook to find the answers to 31 fucking end-of-the-chapter questions. He insists that all homework be typewritten, so I finished with only minutes to spare for the bus and hastily printed it out while I gathered all my other stuff together. Then I quickly scooped up the pages, shoved them into my bookbag and ran out the door. In the few minutes before class started I quickly put the pages in order and then serenely asked the teacher if I could borrow his stapler before placing my homework in the pile on his desk.

Having done the work so quickly I was pretty much expecting that I hadn�t done especially well, so I was gratified to get it back today with the full 50 points of credit marked on it. However, as we went over the work in class, I began to notice something odd... my number 7 wasn�t the same as the number 7 everyone else was reading. Ditto numbers 8, 9, 10... and it wasn�t like I�d skipped one because the real questions were nowhere to be found on this page. What the fuck? Suddenly I realized that I had inadvertantly left out the second page of questions for Chapter 4 completely, and had put the second page of questions for Chapter 5 in its place! And he marked nothing off my work.

I�m tempted to answer one or two questions on the next assignment with some really strange, non-sensical answers--intentionally, I mean, not like my usual strange non-sensical answers that I�m too dumb to realize are just that�just to see if he marks them off. Could be I�m spending way too much time and effort on the homework for this class! Ok, I know it�s probably a bad idea, and I don�t have the balls to just blow off my homework anyway. I just have really big testicles in my rich fantasy life.

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Speaking of the aggravations of college (yes we were, way back there somewhere,) the bus is quickly becoming the bane of my existance. The timing of the bus runs just sucks, and all the stinking waiting around is getting old. I�ve figured out the driver is usually on time for mid-day runs (actually early, although he denies it.) But morning and late afternoons he USUALLY runs anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes late. I stress usually because unfortunately you can�t count on that... very occasionally he�ll hit some good traffic and be on time. What this means is that I MUST be on time, even though the odds are a bazillion to one that he will be. So winter or summer, whether in ass-deep snow or pouring rain or100-degree full sun, my ass has to stand on the fucking side of the road and wait. At 10 trips per week, that�s 200 minutes of waiting time... not counting the 10 minutes it takes to walk to and from, and the commute itself which is another 30. Six hundred minutes a week I spend commuting on public transportation. That�s 10 hours, for four days worth of school. It�d take me 10 minutes each way in my car... 20 on the two evening trips I�d have to make where the traffic is all going my way.

But, I have chosen to do this for the simple reason that I don�t wish to work to support a car payment and insurance. I suppose I could look upon the 10 hours a week I spend commuting as saving whatever the costs of a car would be, thus netting me in effect a �salary per hour� in savings. Yes, I think I will think of it that way... and then I can say that I earn X amount of dollars for standing on a street corner 10 hours a week!

Still, it was really aggravating that the Paper teacher let the class go 40 minutes early today... 5 minutes after the early bus left. Meaning that while everyone else got to go home, I got to sit in the school parking lot for over an hour waiting for the next one. Fun fun fun.

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Speaking of the bus (Am I the Segue Queen today or what?) Today on the bus I was hit on by a Christian. I must tell you that I loathe evangelical types. They just strike me as so... manipulative. Another person strikes up a conversation with me and in spite of the fact I hate talking to strangers, if I�m in a good mood I�ll play along. All the while thinking I�m just exchanging pleasantries with a stranger, and all along the other person is just setting me up for the kill. I�m not a person, a peer, an equal... I�m a soul to be won, another jewel in the heavenly crown! I�m a mark, ripe for buying what Mr. Christian has for sale. I�m an ignorant, miserable evil doer of evil but thank goodness he KNOWS what I NEED, and baby he�s got it RIGHT THERE in the little book he�s clutching under his arm. Now, to be clear, I don�t have a problem with what Christians or anyone else believes, but please... don�t be so arrogant and self-righteous as to believe that random strangers on the bus or street have a need to be enlightened to your way of thinking. Personally, I think most people would do better with a little LESS religious fervor screwing them up, but I don�t go around tapping people on the shoulder and saying, �Let me tell you how not believing in God can change your life.�

So anyway, I had just gotten settled on the bus and was sitting there putting on my makeup when out of the corner of my ear I heard a man say �Hot out there, isn�t it?� Now, to me, that�s the sort of thing you say to someone AFTER you�ve caught their eye... so I simply assumed he was talking to someone else and didn�t respond. Then louder, a moment later. �HOT out there, isn�t it?�

Inwardly I groaned. Oh, fabulous... a person with no social skills wants to strike up a conversation with me. But being a reasonably polite sort, I turned to see a nicely-dressed guy sitting there... with a leather-bound book in his hand. �Yep, sure is hot,� I replied, hoping that would be the end of it even as I knew it would not.

My new �friend� said, �Well, I just thank God I have air conditioning!�

Not liking where the conversation was headed, I left God out of it and just answered politely, �Yeah, I�m just glad the bus has air conditioning� before turning back to my makeup.

Then, clumsily, he moved in for the kill. �I�d like to invite you to my church this Sunday...�

I cut him off. Looking him in the eye I simply said bluntly, �No thank you, I�m a dyed-in-the-wool atheist.� Now the dyed-in-the-wool part is not technically true... I�m only a confirmed atheist on alternate Wednesdays and the rest of the time I�m some mixture of Buddhist and agnostic. But I am certain I don�t believe in HIS version of a deity, so I didn�t see any reason for giving him an opening for an argument.

He looked shocked... if he makes a habit of �witnessing� surely this can�t have been the first time he�s met an avowed atheist! But he simply said, �Oh, ok.�

I kept thinking he�d regroup and try again, but he never did. We spent the rest of the ride in blessed silence. But as we reached his stop and he headed off the bus, I had a near-overwhelming urge to fuck with his head a little.

�Gee, I�m a little disappointed you didn�t keep trying! You just might have convinced me if you�d have tried a little harder.�

Ok, I didn�t really say that. I ALMOST did, though. But then it occurred to me that he might just stay on the bus and continue to try and save me and I definitely didn�t want to deal with that. Besides, I don�t want to encourage persistence in these people. I�m glad enough when they just shut up and go away. But the look on his face might just have been worth it.

I�m thinking about having some cards printed up. Then when some Christian recruiter comes up to me out of the blue and invites me to his church, I�ll just hand him a card that says:

Hi! I�d like to invite you to NOT attend church on Sunday. Instead, why not sleep in, make love to your spouse, read the funnies, read to your kids, get some exercise, walk the dog, paint a picture, listen to music, go fishing, do some gardening, meet a friend for brunch? Three hours spent relaxing on Sunday morning could change your whole outlook on life!

Or something like that.

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And another thing. If you're sitting in a crowded classroom and you know someone near you keeps farting (because you can smell it,) but you're not sure who it is (because you can't hear it) is there some protocol for calling attention to the fact that the situation is bothering you? I was considering simply saying loudly "Smells like somebody needs to go sit on the potty!" But I didn't.

I really could use me a pair of those big brass balls. I wonder if you can order them online?

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Last Five
Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

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