Okay, now I understand what Lynnea was talking about. My grad class from last week left me feeling like a junior-higher at a school dance - awkward and alone, knowing I should keep my mouth shut and come next time in something more than a silk shirt and some wrinkled slacks. It seems that I was not prepared like I should have been, like having a copy of the reading in hand or having all kinds of strange comments about historical authors that have written about the French Revolution. Oh, I didn't go to class in a silk shirt. That would have been something near social stupidity, and I was relying on intellectual stupidity to define that class. So from last Wednesday to this Wednesday (i.e. tomorrow) my assigned reading between my two classes was 700 pages in just two books. The first is Alexis De Tocqueville's The Old Regime and the French Revolution and the second is George Elliot's Felix Holt, and strangely enough they have much in common. And I just realized that you probably don't care. Oh, and I'm writing a 3-5 pager tonight on De Tocqueville. So grad school, yeah, harder than it looked last week. Can I still do it? Maybe, and maybe maybe. Interestingly enough, yesterday I progressed past simple conversation without any hope of further random run-ins to girls walking up to me and me actually learning their names. Well, in this case it is name, but it is quite different than I imagined it would be. Her name is Layla (no idea how to spell that one, but whenever I hear it, I end up sensing the next several minutes of my inner monologue will be dominated by Eric Clapton), and she's a second-year history grad student I had somehow not noticed at our departmental meeting, but she recognized me. We chatted a bit, and she told me to keep her updated on how my semester was going. I caught the subtle hint - upDATEd. Yeah, I hear ya. Actually, though cute and apparently having much in common with me, I imagine she's probably married or living with a boyfriend or attracted to women, something for sure to keep my slowly decaying hopes from ever coming true. Well, I need to run to class here - the one that I'm not in but I just grade everybody's papers - The Barbarian West - 300-1000. Hopefully it's not too boring. Oh, and I'm weightlifting today. Nope, you read right, weightlifting. I haven't done that since.... I might have been a sophomore..... in high school. Anyway, hopefully I won't hurt anything, like everybody's eyes around me or my own tender ego that's so dominated by my athlectic abilities. Right. Anyway, hope all is well.
Kurbis, can I be your child's godfather? Godmother? Stepfat-nevermind. Luckily you won't read this anyway because it's too long. Bye all.