13 March 2002 ~ Love songs, my self-evaluation, and the man I love...

Have come to the conclusion that I have a sick idea of what a "love song" is. You should see my MP3 "love song" list. It's really pretty fucked up. Nothing -- NOTHING -- by the B-52's or AC/DC should ever be called a love song. Nothing that has the words "she was eaten up, okay..." in it should be called a love song. Never.

Maybe I just love DIFFERENTLY than a lot of people.

[...that's like saying: "it's not nice to say 'RETARD,' Helena; say 'SPECIAL' instead!"]

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Took my final exam yesterday, and handed in my portfolio of all the shit I've supposed to've been doing all quarter.

Included in the portfolio: four two-page essays, a Latin hymn written in calligraphy on parchment paper, an artist's statement for the stupid handmade book we had to make, a self-evaluation, my notes for the entire class, and a stupid "intellectual journal" about the stupid books we read. Every entry in the journal was written outside under a tent while smoking. I figured that if I could get motivated enough to write the fucking things, I deserved a little reward. And I figured that if I couldn't finish one in the time it took to smoke a cigarette and a half, I was working too hard on bullshit.

My Self-Evaluation, the Let's Be Honest Remix:

Hi, I'm Helena, and I really fucken didn't like this class. I think that when my professors didn't have anything for us to do, they made up "art" assignments, none of which taught me any damned thing about the middles ages or the Renaissance. Also, we spent a ridiculous amount of time talking about the "tulip craze" in the 1600's in Holland, and practically NO time talking about dead European philosophers. I'm very interested in dead European philosophers, but I never can remember who said what, (except that DesCartes thought, therefore he was), so I would LIKE to learn about them. I am not, however, interested in tulips unless they are in a pretty little jar in the middle of my table in a coffeehouse. For example, my appreciation of tulips was greatly expanded during a recent visit to the B&O Coffeehouse in Seattle. This was not a class trip. If they wanted us to learn about tulips, they should have taken us up north someplace; the Skagit Valley has more fucken tulips than all of Holland put together, at least according to the internet. Now, all this tulip bullshit aside, I HAVE made some progress in my academic career. We'll talk about that now:

First: psyching out the teacher instead of letting the teacher psych YOU out. The teacher will say: "where is your passion?" and "express your opinion more," and "be creative!" But the teacher does not really mean this. What the teacher means is: "The essay you just wrote is taken directly out of the book. Maybe change some of the words to make it sound like you actually wrote something." If you DO actually decide to express your own opinion, the teacher will tell you that your views "do not follow the dominant paradigm," and that you "do not live in reality." This means you play with fairies and talk to dragons. I have learned, thanks to this class, that I can "follow the dominant paradigm" in class, and talk to fairies in the comfort and safety of my dorm. The best way to psych the teach out is to ask her a question you're SURE she knows the answer to. Like: "I'm not sure I understand... So tulips are really pretty big in Holland?" This will earn you a grin. If you say, even to another classmate, "I'm not sure I agree," you will get glared at. Agreeing with things and asking stupid questions is the best way to go.

I learned that tulips are more important than anything. Tulips are more valuable than human life and more significant than dead European philosophers. It's all about the fucken tulip. I learned NEVER to take a history-focussed class from a botanist, EVER again.

I learned that people will always tell you that you have written a good paper if it is technically perfect. Even if you haven't read the book that you wrote the paper about. Even if the book was so boring that you had to read it aloud to yourself to keep from falling asleep, and you still fell asleep. If you can make your sentence-structure pretty, and spell all your words right, you could be writing about the mating habits of wombats, or discussing how many Irishman it takes to screw a dead baby into a light socket, and people will tell you you've done a good job. I learned that if you want to learn a single damned thing about writing, DON'T expect to learn it in a non-writing class.

I have learned a lot more about the middle ages and Renaissance from going to one SCA event than I have learned from this class.

In conclusion, I learned how to pretend I was learning things when I really mostly wasn't. And that is an ability to be proud of! Aw yeah.

Now, for some things I learned this quarter that ARE valuable:

*Cops here are nice and they'll really only be mean to you if you're really mean to them first.
*Most 18-year-old boys would be sexier if they were neutered. A small majority, anyway.
*I know where the library and the post office and the Safeway are in town.
*There is nothing better in the world to do when you're bored than reading Savage Love archives online.
*If ye cannot get laid in the SCA, ye cannot get laid at all.
*Wear two pairs of pants and use contraceptives when going to a rock and roll concert. Do not wear much of anything else, or you will probably die of heatstroke.
*There is no surer way to Heaven than consuming blackberries.
*I fucking hate tulips.

College rocks. But seriously, I am taking a class next quarter that I am GOING TO LOVE. How do I know I'm going to love it? Because I already adore the professor. Louise had him for a class one quarter, and dropped out of it because he told her to quit school and stop feeding into the system. Louise is pretty sure he's insane. I'm hoping she's right. The registration lady took one look at the course I was taking and said, "ah, David..." and shook her head. Then she added: "I won't say anything, I really won't say anything... If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." I'm taking that as a good sign. All the administration folks at CSF disliked Professor Bank, too, because they thought he was advocating anarchy, which he kind of was. But Professor Bank changed my life a hundred million times over. I left the registrar's office grinning madly. Next quarter is going to rock!

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I went to check my mail. I ordered a video on Ebay three or four weeks ago, and I still haven't gotten it, so I've been compulsively checking my PO box.

No video. No letters. Hell and damnation.

But as I turned around, I nearly ran into the man I am in love with.

[My gentle readers: "HUH?"]

I decided not so long ago that I'm in love with this guy on campus. He has long, long brown hair that he wears under a bandanna, perfectly smooth skin, and pretty brown eyes with long dark eyelashes. He wears a brown jacket a lot. I can't tell if it's leather or plastic. I don't know his name, and I've never spoken to him, but I decided I was going to be in love with him, because being in love with people is a whole hell of a lot easier when you really don't know anything about them. You see, my imagination -- which, as you know, gets me into heaps of trouble -- is MUCH more interesting than almost any human being I've ever met. That's why I'm going to be in love with this guy; he's going to be the vehicle for my imagination. We have a date soon. And we're going to Hawaii for Spring Break. Uh...

Well, fortunately or unfortunately, me and the love of my life are signed up for the same course next quarter, so I guess I'll have to learn his name. Once I talk to him, I'll likely stop being in love with him, but it's a fun game while it's lasting...

Maybe I'll tape one of my "special" love songs and slip it into his jacket pocket, with a letter that describes everything I love about him, even though I know absolutely NOTHING about him.

Yeah, yeah, whatever; so I'm a freak. But you can't say I'm not creative.

I'm starving; off to feed myself.

~Helena*