Things I Yelled At Passerby And Fellow Motorists From The Safe Confines Of My Car, Addled By Coffee And Too Little Lunch, Adrenaline Pumping Through My Veins From Turning A Paper In Juuuuust Under Deadline And Running Late:

• “You are a bus.  You are bigger than the pedestrians walking in front of you.  JUST START DRIVING.  They’ll move!  Run them over if you have to!”
• “Tights are not paaaaaaants!”
• “Roads are for pedestrians to cross, not wander down like the dazed sole survivor of the apocalypse.”
• “OMG, the stop hand means STOP WALKING not ‘Stop using your brain to interpret this symbol into a meaningful directive to keep yourself from getting run over’.  I WILL RUN YOU OVER.”

Grumpelstiltskin

I HATE that it’s been 11 days since my last post.  I’d been doing so good!  But, I was home on Spring Break, and there’s just something about being in Dayton that kills my drive to write.  I was relatively unmotivated and lazy all of break, come to think of it; I think I must have watched about twenty hours of basketball in the last three days I was home.  I did manage to apply to one grad program my first day of break, so there’s something.  And I thought I would be overjoyed to be back in BG, but I’ve been incredibly grumpy allllll day.  Minimal patience.  I think I’m just super salty at February and the boy situations that went down.  One slow-burn ended up fizzling out and one friendship fucking EXPLODED EVERYWHERE MONSTER FUCKING WRECK.  I would really like to just get the fuck over it already, but there’s no way to force these things, now is there?  And you know what is just not comforting when you’re suffering from some low-key boy-related drama?  Every damn soul around you falling in looooooooove.  Or at least liiiiiiiiiike.  Shut up and take it to the back row of the movie theater and leave me here in my moth-eaten faded wedding dress, staring at this moldering piece of cake or what-the-fuck-ever.  Yeah, yeah, I’ll be FINE.

So.  I’m sure you’re happy to see my sanity is just as intact as ever.

Juxtaposition, Part II

Second, in possibly a series.

Sitting in my contemporary poetry class, talking about the idea of duende and its influence on the poetry of James Wright, we all kind of quiet a bit to hear two bros go walking through the building’s lobby, right outside our classroom door, talking loudly to one another.  One lets out an enormous belch that goes echoing off the walls and vaulted ceiling; the other pauses to appreciate the glory of that eruption, and then continues on with his story: “So about this sexting…..”

In Which I Judge People Just To Amuse Myself

So, today in my Brit Lit prior to 1660 class (yes, it’s exactly as disgusting as it sounds), there were two group presentations on the schedule.  Cool, I thought, because all previous presentations have been fun and engaging and enjoyable, involving Monty Python and BBC shows and DIY astrolabes, for Christ’s sake.  Can’t wait to see what these two groups have in store for us today!

Oh.  Wait.  These two groups consisted entirely of poor public speakers and tragically dressed young women.  To the girls who presented today, some feedback:

• Ok, girl in the pink sweater dress.  You look adorable and don’t speak like you have marbles in your mouth, so even though all you did was read directly off of your paper, you get a pass.
• However, you, sporty looking girl, do not.  I realize that you are athletic and are on the curling team and are a little bit offbeat, and I even appreciate that you were the only member of your group actually talking to the class and not acting like a court stenographer being asked to repeat lines back to the jury, BUT!  There are things called hairbrushes and they make them for a reason.  Maybe it’s acceptable to just toss your hair in a ponytail and then smoosh it all back with a headband for the post-game curlers’ party, but you are being graded on how you present, and part of that is how you appear.  So, while you’re at it, take off that ridiculous fleece-lined zippy vest and throw on a damn sweater already.  Also, your lip ring makes you look like one of these.
• Ok, now, Final girl From This Group- here’s the deal.  I chose to read the selection by Hobbes about the Leviathan rather than listen to your monotone recitation of your entire paper.  Your fake blonde hair looks very cute today all curled and hairsprayed up, but seriously, princess, invest in a public speaking skills training class.  For all of us!
• Now, second group, my hopes were low.  And you did not exceed them.  But by now I was resigned to people droning out exactly what was on their papers, but ok, Tracy or whatever your name is, next time you present in this or any class, put on some real pants, and for God’s sake, at least ditch the North Face for the duration of the presentation.  Would that kill you?  Also, thanks for the comedic relief after you used the “word” chronologicler.  The puzzled way our professor said “Chronologer? Chronicler?” and your reply of an eye roll and “I don’t know, I’m not that good at pronouncing things” was priceless.  Like the basic human task of speech is too much for you.
• Ok, and you, Hilary or Ashley or Tiffany or whomever, the previously mentioned North Face, or fleece-lined zippy vest, or basically anything in the whole damned world would have been better attire for your presentation than that baby pink sweatshirt emblazoned with “Party Like A Rockstar” and last year’s worn-out Uggs.  No one is going to take your assessments of Ben Jonson’s masques seriously when you look like a hungover sorority girl schlepping to her early Friday morning class after a totally crazyyyyy Thirsty Thursday.  You feel me, Amber?

Ok, now that I feel all Harriet the Spy (except it’s not like any of these people are my friends, just random classmates), here’s a positive: my professor for this horrid class is one of the most adorable, likeable, intelligent, literate, friendly, and sweetly dorky people I’ve had the good luck to encounter in two and half years at this University.  I really only stuck with this class all semester because she made a positive impression on me from day one, all trying to learn everyone’s names by making eye-contact and requesting an interesting fact about them.  Also, she totally complimented my first-day-of-classes dress and chatted with me about “The Lady of Shalott” when we ran into each other in the bathroom one day just before class.   So, yeah, she rules.