how to dismantle an atomic bear
28 December 2005
Finishing up a 16-hour semester is like returning from a place far far away. You come back and look at your room, textbooks scattered about the room everywhere. Papers, syllabi, journal articles and notes cover the floor in disorganized piles. The first thing you think is how to go about cleaning up because quite suddenly, it's okay to live in your room again. In November and December, you work there and when you've accomplished enough that you can spare the time, you sleep there for brief intervals. But you do not really live there. You occasionally gaze up at the bookshelf or the desk and see certain novels, DVDs, and other remnants of hobbies pursued in what feels like days long past. But it seems like so long ago. You are accustomed to having enough free time to procrastinate, to unwind, or and to do something that allows you to vegetate while keeping a close eye on the clock. But you do not have hobbies. Your focus is somewhere else.
And so you come back and look at your room and are immediately dismayed at how messy it is. You never noticed before. So you clean it up, look over it with satisfaction, and then lie on your bed staring at the ceiling. There is no work to do. So there is nothing to do. It's a little confusing, but it staring at the ceiling isn't so bad after spending several months attempting to balance the competing demands of professors who separately, yet uniformly imagine that their class is your only priority. There is really no way you can do everything they collectively ask of you. And if you try, you're just setting yourself up for early burnout. Succeeding in college is mostly about learning what you can get away with and learning how to strategically select what to not do. I imagine the business world is similar in its hyper-emphasis on efficiency rather than creativity and originality.
But now, a lot of other books sit on my desk. I read a little of one each day. They are hobbies again. Battle Cry of Freedom, Doyle's Ways of War and Peace, and Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics. I remember taking up interests in history and politics when I started college. And why not? I was going to major in them. It would give me an advantage. I had decided that I would naturally race ahead of the rest of my class because I enjoyed the subjects I was studying. But it did not really work out that way. If I raced ahead, it was because I knew how to write, how to argue, how to quickly learn what it was each professor was looking for, and how to make good guesses when I wasn't sure. The books I'm reading now are ones I would read in graduate school. But I am not going to graduate school and am not quite sure why I read them anyway.
In addition to the books, I got an iPod for Christmas. Black. Nano. 2GB. It fits in my wallet. I wasn't expecting it. It's nice not to have to burn a CD every time I get tired of hearing the same 15 or so songs in the car. I'm usually aware of my surroundings wherever I go. I've never used a walkman or anything, but I think that's going to change now. Future obliviousness will be attributed to my iPod as much as my books.
For Christmas, I also got a harmonica and a singing dog (thanks, Grandma!). He sings Christmas carrols. After about the third time, I had to not make him sing anymore. Dad had started to yell ominous threats at the dog in my direction.
I enjoyed the Narnia movie. I thought the casting couldn't possibly have been better. There were a few scenes from the book I wish they would have added. The battle kinda sucked. And I didn't think they did justice to the Witch's triumph during Aslan's execution.
"And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was, and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life, and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die."
This speech should have been quoted verbatim in the movie. The significance of Aslan's death and resurrection wasn't quite made clear. They glossed over it. But overall, I was pleasantly surprised. I really didn't expect the movie to be that well done.
13 December 2005
At this point in the semester, the drive to excell has usually exhausted itself weeks ago, but the failure of motivation is usually compensated for with a greater efficiency in studying habits as a result of greater familiarity with professors and their teaching methods.
On Professor Lewis' final exam, it was known that there would be three essay questions (from the list of 15 or so that he provided with the syllabus), of which we would have to answer two. The result was that I studied for exactly two essay questions and was prepared to engage in an absurd level of bullshitting if both of them were not on the exam.
Most of those I spoke with before the exam had exactly the same tactic: study the reasons why we lost Vietnam. Study the Tet Offensive. Study nothing else. In September, we would have studied every possible essay question. December tends to take apathy levels to soaring new heights.
I showed up early to the building where the exam was to be held. The sun hadn't come up yet. It was before seven. Few others were in the building. I sat down at a table outside of a snack area where students often congregated before a test. A bespectacled, overweight girl sat there alone. She looked smart at least. I sat down and asked her what she thought would be on the test, hoping to run into some insights I hadn't considered and hoping for some vindication of my lazy approach to studying.
But she knew less than I did and seemed more interested in chatting away about her spring schedule, her thoughts on other professors in the history department, and shoot I dunno. I simply tuned her out after a while (but continued nodding politely at her of course). Before long, her friends showed up. One of them asked me if she could look at my sheet of key terms I had quickly defined. I handed her the terms sheet I had made earlier that morning and stapled to the essays I had hastily written but not memorized. She thanked me, set the sheet down in front of her, and resumed chatting about absolutely nothing. It was the sort of sarcasm-filled, bad joke ridden conversation that 20-year-olds who don't know each other often make when they are either stupid or have nothing else to say. It was not the atmosphere I expected with a group of students who have a final exam only a few minutes away. There was no evident sense of urgency, of anticipation, or otherwise substantive discussion. I asked for my study pages back and slipped away.
My arm carelessly glazed over a doorframe thick with wet paint (I didn't know it was wet). Cold and with my coat ruined, I stopped in the bookstore that day to pick up a hooded sweatshirt. I also got my hair cut that day. I have lost nearly 10 pounds in the last month. I looked myself in the mirror and thought that I didn't look a day over 18. I'm a fifth-year senior in college, but I could easily pass for high school, and people tend to address me with the assumption that I'm must be an underclassman. I tend not to mind. The alternative being that I'm 24, still in college, and still living with my parents isn't necessarily preferable.
06 December 2005
Coke is a wonderful invention. You can substitute coke for anything: sleep, food, alcohol (actually, I wouldn't know about that last one, but I bet I'm right). I've lost five pounds in the last week by eating mostly hard-broiled eggs and coke. I always wondered how I managed to stay so fit living in Washington. I only have to think back to the occasional 6-mile jog, the sleepless nights, the lack of proximity to fast-food places, and the innumerable cans of Mountain Dew that littered my apartment.
My car needs an oil change. It needs to be cleaned out. The glass frappuccino bottles clang against one another on the floor of the backseat when I make sharp turns. But I suppose all my turns are sharp. It also needs a few repairs. I was pulled over for not having a front license plate today. I didn't know it was missing and have no idea how I lost it. On the rear passenger floor panel, a month's worth of car trash is piled up such that I could probably manage a small bonfire in my car if it necessary.
It's been a stressful month, so I bought several books that I don't have time to read. They sit next to me here on my desk collecting dust. But they make me happy.
I imagine I'll watch a lot of movies next month. Our new house has a small theater room, complete with a projector screen some five feet wide and with crazy stereo speakers. The weird thing is that you can watch tv on it. It's like walking into a movie theater, kicking back on the sofa with the remote, and browsing through the channels. I watched each of the Lord of the Rings movies about six times each in the theater. Been there, done that. Watching the Cowboys play on a projector screen? Awesome. Now that I haven't done. Now I need to go get Resident Evil 4 and set my Playstation 2 up on it.
The campus seems pretty empty. A lot of classes don't meet during this week. It's "dead week." But my sadistic professors don't like to observe it. They are all dead week scrooges. All my classes meet. I think they just like to make us suffer.
