I really want to take this article and shove it in Virgil Goode’s face.

I got really pissed off watching Boston Public while sorting my Legos by color when the teaser for the ABC 11 o’clock news mentioned the Brandy story out in California with “Bad News for Brandy.” In case you missed it, last year, Brandy was recklessly operating her motor vehicle and killed somebody.

So, she’s facing a year in jail, a fine, and a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Somehow I doubt the money is going to be much of a problem for her, and while jail time certainly sucks, we’re talking a year here (and almost certainly she’ll be able to plead out to something less), and even if she does go to jail, she’s still going to be, y’know, alive.

And here’s the lesson: when you drive, pay attention.

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of trackbacks from websites with names like, for example, “Academic LifeWeblog.” At first, I was on the fence about whether to consider them spamers or not, but once I paid attention to the actual “blogs”, I noticed that they:

a.) display ads prominently above the post they’re quoting.
b.) offer no commentary to indicate any opinion on the post.
c.) all have the same display format, down to color, font, and spacing.

So now they’re all getting marked as spam and deleted.

So I’m two classes down. The second class, taught by Prof D., is the same professor — the chair of the department, actually — who taught my Chaucer class last semester. Anyway, probably a fourth of this class (History of the English language) were students who were also in Chaucer. So when class got out a little early, I wound up talking with T. (who sat in front of me in Chaucer) and two other students from the class. One of those students is a guy I’m going to call Cowboy, and I’m going to call him that more for his choice in coat and headgear styles than for any possible Brokeback reference I could make.

So, anyway, Cowboy is not only in my HEL class (which is an appropriate abbreviation since the class will most certainly be HELlish) but in my Ancient Myth course as well. The Myth course is in the ugliest, most decrepid lecture hall in Linthicum Hall (not saying much, there’s only two). The chairs are molded plastic, bright yellow and orange, the stairs are weird and awkward, and the lighting doesn’t work. Best laugh of the day? Dr. B, who said, “You will be in much nicer lecture halls than this.” In all of my long college career, I’ve had four classes in lecture halls, and all of them have been, you guessed it, in the same damn lecture hall: the ugly one! So, no, Doc B., I won’t be (although it turns out that all the previous Myth classes have been in LI-200, and that one is at the very least color coordinated).

So after T. and her friend walk away, Cowboy and I start talking about Myth. He mentions he might drop it, and then we start talking about a girl who sits in the very front row of the class. I’m trying to figure out when it was I realized I loathed her, and then it occured to me that when she asked, quite seriously, “Is it okay to use ‘net speak’ on our responses?” was the moment when I felt a deep and barely quenchable desire to drag her to the top of the Stephen’s Hall clocktower and drop kick her onto York Road. It’s a fucking English class, why not ask if you can do your responses in German?! Or Klingon!

On the plus side, Dr. B, who either was clueless about ‘net speak’ or just trying to deflect her own desire to drag a certain student to the top of the Stephen’s Hall clocktower and drop kick her onto York Road, tried to make a joke, then deny any knowledge of net-speak, then described a trip to Greece where her husband almost got into fisticuffs after proclaiming about a ruin, “Who gives a shit about the Romans?”, to which another tourist rounded on him and said, “I’m a Latinist! I do!” And people say academics aren’t violent.

In any case, after Cowboy explained he sometimes felt bad about judging people (”Net Speak Girl” had to say something every time Dr. B did, including an attempt at explaining the Johnny Appleseed Folklore, which, apparently, has to do with getting drunk, which was something I felt I was desperately in need of after listening to her go on and on and on), I agreed with that philosophy, and then explained that my loathing for her was entirely directed at her Net Speak question, at which point he frowned and said, “I thought she was joking.”

And now that I had that thought in my mind — was she? I doubt it — I felt very bad for desiring to drag her to the top of the Stephen’s Hall clocktower and drop kick her onto York Road. Of course, I would never do something like that. Life in jail isn’t worth it over a declining use of the English language (which, admittedly, I do myself butcher frequently).

Did I mention how boring yesterday at work was?

Over the last several months, I’ve usually only worked 11-3 at the Franchise on Mondays. With my schedule-shifting to keep up with my spring courses, I had to drop my Thursday night 5-Close at the Franchise, and began working 11-8 to keep my hours the same. Of course, Thursday nights are busier than Mondays (particularly this time of the year), but we’ve all got to make sacrifices.

So, yesterday I worked 11-8. It didn’t start out badly: a few times a month, the big private school up the road orders lunch from us, and today was one of those days - I trekked there three times with sixty-some odd pizzas total, and walked away with a thirty-dollar tip. I got back from the final run at 12:30pm, and it would be four more hours until my next delivery. Not that I minded: I finished The Nutmeg of Consolation and got all my day-time chores done.

As I mention, I was scheduled to be off at 8pm. As there was only the closing driver working, this would make me the late guy — essentially, I’d stick around until the deliveries slowed to a trickle, then I’d sweep the store, take out the trash, and go home. Great plan: one flaw. The closing driver, this nineteen-or-twenty-year-old maturity challenged “I like wearing my hair like it’s still the nineteen seventies” beat-up-old Mercedes driving kid (drumroll, please) never showed up.

The plot deepens: he didn’t show up Saturday, either. The plot thickens: his parents call the store looking for him. This is where it gets a bit mysterious because this kid, while he’s apt to jump into a bush of brambles on a bet; who think he’s as immortal as any member of the “jackass” crew; who brags that he had so many blowjobs the previous weekend that if some random old lady comes into the store to order a pizza, her open mouth is going to cause him to get physically sick; anyway, this kid, despite his flaws and sick sense of humor, always lets his parents know where he is, so the fact that no one — even his best friend, who also works at the Franchise — knows where he is is, um, slightly ominous.

(more…)

A few minutes ago, a cute girl approached me in the hall here on the second floor of Linthicum. She asked for directions to her classroom, which she couldn’t locate. The numbering here is weird — odd numbered classrooms are to the left of the building, even numbered to the right, but any sense of a real sequentiality is non-existant. Anyway, she was looking for classroom #231, so I sent her down to the far end of the hall, only later realizing — remembering! — that the hall ends with 217: the office complex for whatever department (the only ones I can bother to remember is the English department at the other end of the same hall, or the History department at 117). Anyway, I should’ve asked to see her schedule - she was quite possibly in the wrong building, or had transposed the numbers and was looking for 213. In any case, I think the chances of me tapping her finely contoured rear, which were already slim and non-existant, have now become slimmer, and non-existanter. Bah!

Also: Yongkun Su, remember for the future that you need to take the responsibility to log yourself out of public-access computers in the future. You didn’t log yourself out of Towson’s ONLINE page, and your Fall 2006 classes and grades are listed on this computer (I will log you out, after adding some classes to your schedule*). Please, should you ever find this post Googling yourself, congratulations — and I mean this — on your two As, two Bs, and B+ in courses ranging from ADVANCED ENGLIGH LANGUAGE 2 to MICROECONOMIC PRINCIPLES.

*I’m just kidding. Besides, you’re taking SIX CLASSES already. I couldn’t possibly add anything! Holy frak, man.

So maybe I don’t actually have jitters. Any first-day of class is bound to bring upon some nervous feelings — how many papers does Prof X want us to write? how many Middle English words does Prof Y expect us to pronounce perfectly? — but the butterflys in my stomach are mostly ajitter because of the lovely parking situation, always dicey at Towson, particularly so because one lot is closed for construction of a new parking garage (not going to help any this semester!) and because everyone shows up for the first day of class.

This is why despite my first class being scheduled at 11am, my alarm clock is going off at 8, and I expect to be enroute (if not already arrived) by 8:30. I’ve already cleaned out my bag of last semester’s (full semester, not just the minimester) detritus and put in my new notebooks and the few books I suspect might be required. Heck, I’m so prepared, I’ve even set out my clothes.

All that’s left for me to do is print out a copy of my schedule and go to bed. Here’s hoping tomorrow erm, today, goes rather uneventful. In a few short hours, I’ll know how many papers and tests I’ve got ahead of me.

(Joy).