First Day Reflection

Today is the dreaded first day of a new semester. Predictably enough, I have shuffled my classes and changed them irrevocably because of petty and baseless superstitions and prejudices. I switched into a different narrative writing workshop because it was held on the third floor of the English Building and I still do not recognize the third floor as real or necessary. For a more extreme example, I dropped my much-anticipated film class because the professor emailed us an assignment before the semester started. It wasn't that it was a difficult assignment, or anything like that. I just cannot help but feel that it cannot bode well for a class that the professor cannot wait a week to start cutting into my free time. So I dropped it and I signed up for a class that fit neatly into the spot. Surely, I supposed, a class entitled 'Themes in Narrative' will be a simple enough literature class that I can both grasp these 'themes' and still enjoy myself. I was a little less enthusiastic when I discovered that the reading list was limited almost entirely to Latin American literature. One of the previously mentioned prejudices is against highly poetic literature. It gives me a headache. I like to write poetically. It's a gas. Readiing it, however, is cumbersome and dilutes the true meaning of the author's intention. Because I am a mild racist, I assume that people from any place with a higher median temperature than, say, Chicago, must write florid and romantic and poetic prose because they are all romantic and poetic people and I am not. I am sentimental and curt and as has been so aptly noted recently, blasé. And so it goes, I went into the classroom with nothing but the expectation that I would promptly drop it and beg my way back into my film class.

I sure was surprised. The novels still sound a little on the dull side and my classmates were a little quiet, but the professor is a knowledgable little stick of energy. She's intense and Marxist and looks like I expect Olga will at the age of 39. So she said a lot of cool things that blew my mind. Things like 'Slavery is bad for Capitalism.' You know, things that make you go-'whoa, what, why?' Then she explained it in one sentence. 'Slaves don't buy anything.' I was like, 'whoa...that's pretty fucking true, for the most part, I guess.' She's incisive and prejudiced and fun.

I also had Madonick's poetry workshop. Madonick's class cannot be bad and there are more obscentities than a Tarantino movie. At times, I wish that the people in that class were less familiar to me. In the end, however, it is very enjoyable to see so many people that I know enjoying themselves so thoroughly. His class was really a lovely way to begin the semester. It is fun and familiar and--oh, rollicking, I suppose. Something like that. He does bear an unfortunate resemblance to Rob Reiner. Unfortunate for Rob Reiner.

Right now, I am sitting in my Physics class. It is ri-goddamn-diculous. I just watched my professor pull a tablecloth out from under a pile of dishes, a glass of water, and a lit candle. She then informed us that we would be performing the same feat in our lab section later this week. Higher education? Or is it just a lesson in how little we actually need to know to be considered educated adults competent to enter the workforce? She then explained inertia by telling us that massive objects are harder to move. She demonstrated this with a lead brick and a student. No one was hurt. She is now seated on a cart and propelling herself across the front of the lecture hall with a fire extinguisher.

Thus far, not the worst first day ever, but I've got another class yet. Time Arts looks to be a goddamn waste of time, but I've been mistaken in the past (the cheese in the pocket incident, for one) and I will be mistaken in the future and maybe right now. It might just be the best class I'll ever take.

But really, very probably not.