and the Deed is Done
Episode I: In The Beginning.................................(9/03/03)
(4.3 out of 5 stars, 12 votes)
I'm already into the third week of classes. To say that things aren't as I thought that they would be is an understatement. Lucky for all of you, I took notes during my orientation. I don't have the time, or the drive at this point to properly organize and write them how they should be, but I think that it's important that you see where I'm coming from, so I'll write them here as they appear in my notebook. Please excuse the poor writing, that should improve soon.
Orientation: I make it to campus bright and early today, and find that this place is shittier that my high school. Of course, high school cost me $22,000 a year.... I walk through the doors, to put it mildly, I am not impressed. But, it is hard to impress me. I find out that all my classes aren't even at my school, so we open the day the a campus tour of another school, where some of my classes will be held. I am shown the science building, where I will have my anatomy class. They take us to a lecture hall that everyone seems to think is huge. I am still unimpressed. I am even more unimpressed when I learn that they aren't even sure if this is where the class will be held. Remind me again the purpose of taking this tour.....
I look at my itinerary and see that my next stop is "Health 400." I turn to my tour guide and ask what this will entail. She has no idea. Some guide. I inform her that I'll find out and let her know later. "Health 400" turns out to be a badly pitched attempt to convince everyone to stay in school longer. Obviously they just want more of our money and more of our lives. Fat bastards.
After our ever so important "Health 400" class we were broken up into advisor groups. Why is every orientation to everything ever always the same? Inevitable it's some queer thinly veiled exercise designed to get everyone to get to know each other. However, all you ever learn is how cheesy everyone is and how much they suck. The only way to be a badass (and I need to become a badass) is to be quiet and stoic, but they always make you talk. Thus, it's impossible to be a badass. I also pick up on the prevalence of "god talk." Warning bells are ringing.
I have made another disturbing observation. I was told that the female to male ratio would be 10 to 1. This figure has held true. However, of this sizable group of women, only about 10% of those are remotely attractive. When we broke into our advisor groups I came to a horrible realization. Of that group of "possibles" a sizable portion seem to be either engaged, or married. It's like the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner up in this mother. "Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink." Not surprisingly, my life continues to suck.
Then we are all herded into a room to listen to crappy speech after crappy speech. And why do people hand out papers and then insist on reading them aloud? What the fuck? Can't I read for myself? If you can't read a fucking page, perhaps you're in the wrong place. Then, as if things couldn't get any worse, the school prez gets up and ends the entire day with a 5 minute prayer. What the hell? A prayer? This makes me quite upset and most angry. I think that I'm going to start telling everyone that I'm a Jew, or maybe Buddhist.
Episode II: Attack of the Killer DOT..........................(10/01/03)
(4.4 out of 5 stars, 13 votes)
It�s dreary and rainy outside today. The pitter-patter of falling drops fills the dark empty space of my lonely apartment. I have sat in my darkened computer room, huddled up in front this glowing screen all day. Studying, you ask? Bah! Studying is for chumps. Since I think I finished looking at the entire Internet already, I suppose that I can write another piece for you hungry jackals.
I have nutrition every Monday morning from 8am until 11am. What a way to get the week started. It�s not that I don�t like nutrition. In fact, I really like what I�m learning. But the people that take the class with me are complete morons. Let me start off with the one that sits closest to me. In fact, she sits next to me, every Monday.
What shall I call her? Disgusting ogre troll doesn�t even do her justice, but I think I�ll use that. DOT. DOT is thoroughly revolting. She always manages to come into class late. I think she does it so that I have to look at her, instead of ignoring her when she sits next to me. She comes in the door huffing and puffing, makes me scoot my chair forward so that she can squeeze her fat ass in, and plops down next to me, inevitably asking me what she has missed. This happens a lot. In fact, she spends the whole three hour lecture asking me questions. �What did she just say?� is the most common. Then, while I�m attempting to tell her without disturbing anyone else around us, I end up missing the next thing that comes out of my prof�s mouth. Great job, orca. Let me get back on track here though. To really appreciate DOT I have to describe her physically first. If I had to guess (and I have to) I would put her at about 5�6� and 275lbs. She has medium length, stringy dirty blonde hair. (note: I use dirty to describe her hair, both for the color and the actual physical quality that it has) She has a huge �moon� face with giant �gagging toad� eyes. Last time I was forced to look her in the face, she had gross skin flecks peeling off. She is ALWAYS chewing gum, and ALWAYS in the most disgusting lip smacking manner. It makes me quiver right now thinking about it. I have noticed that when I see fat, disgusting people, there is a smell attached. I can be across the street and see an ugly and I will smell something, and not something good. Evidently my subconscious is a dirty, heinous place. So, I don�t know if she actually smells, or if that�s my evil brain kicking in.
DOT insists on telling me shit all during class. The other day she decided that her dislike of broccoli was sufficiently important to interrupt my learning to inform me about it. I DON�T FUCKING CARE IF YOU DON�T LIKE MOTHERFUCKING BROCOLLI! The name of the class is �nutrition� not �Foods I like and dislike,� assfuck. She spreads her shit all over the table, leaving me enough space for my notebook and sometimes my Nalgene bottle. When she wants to read my notes, she just leans over, puts her finger of my notes, and moves it around until she finds what she�s looking for. Do you know how annoying that is? That would still annoy me if she was the hottest woman alive (see: Paris Hilton) Well, maybe not. But it sure as hell annoys me now. Yesterday during our exam, she had to use my calculator. Her gross factor is so far off the scale, I think that I�m going to have to disinfect it, lest I get the gross bug on me and have it destroy my perfectly chiseled face.
DOT might be disgusting, annoying and stupid but the rest of the people in my class are just plain stupid. Our last lecture was all about fat. We spend the first 1 � hour talking about cholesterol, heart disease, Diabetes, and America�s problem with obesity. I know that I could use a little work myself, but at least I make an effort not to get fatter than I already am. So we finally reach the point in class where the Prof feels like she can let us take a 10 minute break. Here are some examples of the snacks people came back with. Everyone returns with at least a soda, bad, but not terrible. Several come back with candy bars, worse. One girl comes back from the cafeteria (how she went to the cafeteria, ordered and returned in 10 minutes is beyond me) with fucking biscuits and gravy. Jesus, pack it on, saddlebags� But by far my favorite was some fat lady who come prancing in with a bag of Cheeto�s, and not a small bag at that. She has the full on big sack of Cheeto�s. What the fuck? Not only are Cheeto�s quite possible the worst food in the world for you (other than perhaps pure palm oil) but keep in mind that it�s only 9:30am. Who eats cheeto�s that early in the morning. If I were the professor, I would automatically fail all of those people on the spot. They obviously haven�t learned a single thing. Incedently, these are the same fatties that take the elevator down one level. They can�t even walk down one flight of stairs. It�s down people, gravity pulls you, it�s almost like negative work. These people blow my mind. I�ve been giving serious thought on withdrawing from the human race.
Episode III: Needle for The Kid..................................(12/01/03)
(2.7 out of 5 stars, 7 votes)
I know it�s been a long time since my last update. I know I know I know. Jesus, stop whining, I do have a life outside of this website, and unfortunately that life sucks a lot of ass. Thanksgiving break was a thinly veiled excuse to assign shit tons of homework, thus insuring that there was no earthly way to enjoy your break. I showed them though, I wasted hours upon hours (and many brain cells undoubtedly) watching the James Bond movie marathon on Spike TV. I cannot think of a better way to pass the holiday, other than drinking, and believe you me; I did my fair share. Just ask Patty, or the anonymous Bill and Jenn, they were there to see me in all my glory. So, a poorly spent long weekend under my belt, it�s time to get the metaphorical nose back to the grindstone, and back to my shit hole school and all it�s occupants that piss me off constantly.
Last Friday morning, I�m sitting in my Philosophy class (8 in the morning, mind you,) trying my best not to fall asleep by thumbing through the plethora of magazines that I now bring so that I can pass the time. The topic of discussion is none other than God. Existence of God, arguments against God, etc etc. You get the picture. Everyone in my retarded class is weighing in with their shitty arguments, and it�s all I can do to refrain from destroying them. I choke my disdain down and manage to read my magazine and throw some of my shitty game out to the red head next to me. Forty-five minutes have passed; the people in the front are still debating all kinds of useless crap that�s not even in the book, when it happens. One of the girls in my class walks in, with her kid. She walks right in the front door, past the instructor, down the center isle and sits down. Across from me. Never mind that she could have used the back entrance and managed not to bother, oh lets say, THE ENTIRE CLASS. Who comes to class 45 minutes late? If I�m that late, I just roll over and go back to sleep, baby. Speaking of babies, her kid couldn�t have been over two years old. I�m pretty sure that he had ADHD or something, but maybe that�s how all of those little shin biters are, I wouldn�t know because I take precautions.
If I did have a kid, he definitely wouldn�t be coming to class with me, and if he had to, I would make sure that he took his fucking Ritalin first. She let him pretty much do whatever he wanted. He crawled on the floor, he launched toys from the table on to the floor, he climbed on students near him, he ran from the room, and the most annoying, he would squeal at random intervals. It was so bad that all the crappy �I just love kids� ladies were even looking back and giving the evil eye, and the mother was impervious. I don�t think she even noticed. I wasn�t even trying to pay attention to the Prof. I was just looking at pictures in my magazine, and the little squirt was so animated that even I was having problems doing that. I feel sorry for the people who thought they were trying to have an intelligent discussion with the Instructor.
I put up with this crap for about two hours until my class let out. I packed up all my stuff as fast as I could, jumped on my bike and sped from campus as fast as she would take me, the entire time convincing myself that it was entirely too early for me to get snipped.
Kids piss me off
Episode IV: Freedom Slipping Away..............................1/20/04)
(3.9 out of 5 stars, 8 votes)
I have returned with some tasty morsels for you hungry mongrels to devour with your eyes. A long and brutally boring break at it�s end, I return to my rightful place in front of my keyboard to write snippets of my life for all of you to ponder, dissect, and laugh at. The majority of my days were spent on the couch (or Citizen D�s couch) remote in hand, and often drink in the other. Generally my experiences were rather bland but several moments stand out. I shall list them briefly now and then hurry to the meat of this installment.
1. My father repeatedly and unapologetically calls my little half brother by my name. Reaffirming my belief that they are trying to replace me with a newer model. Little do they know that they don�t make �em like they did in �78 anymore.
2. I got pulled over on my motorcycle only because I resembled someone that had run from the cops the day before. The cop then proceeded to harass me, asking for all kinds of shit and even making me go into my bank, have them pull up my info, just to "make sure" that I wasn�t lying to him. (Paddy, don�t give me shit, the bastard was fucking with me.) After he finishes up with the "bad cop" routine, he then tells me that he used to ride sportbikes. Way to foster the bond, asshole.
3. The Tempest family household still has Christmas decorations up. Still!
4. A certain classmate of mine promised to come and party with the D and I. Names will not be mentioned, as the guilty party knows who they are. This event did not come to fruition, and frankly, I am pissed.
5. I learned that certain someone (once again, no names) who I thought was a friend has been voting me the lowest possible score, only because she said, and I quote " I think you can write better than that." What? Mike; make sure your wife reads this.
6. The people that occupy the apartment above me continue to drop heavy objects at an alarming rate.
7. I managed to make the Citizens very own mother think that perhaps, just perhaps we might be budding alcoholics. I can�t imagine why. Perhaps it was how we powered through hundreds of dollars worth of booze in a few weeks. I managed to keep our rampant heroin use under the proverbial carpet.
8. Snatch finally bought a car. Yea Snatch! On the flip side, he once again won all of our money in the annual x-mass Citizen D poker tournament.
9. A mutual "friend" of the D and I keeps on snubbing our friends and us. I�m sure that she doesn�t read the site so my complaints fall on deaf ears. But one night soon, mark my words, I promise to get really drunk, call her, and tell her off.
So, now I sit here with the final hours of freedom slipping through my fingers like so much sand through the hourglass. (These are not the days of our lives, just my horrid life) I try to hurriedly scribble down my vacation memoirs like a condemned man waiting for the axe to fall. Part of me looks forward to this new semester as a beginning of new experiences. An adventure to be had, full of new people to meet and new things to learn. The other part of me wants to kick the first part in the crotch for even thinking like such a pussy. What did I learn during my massive six-week break? Nothing. What did I accomplish? As little as possible. As I sit here in front of the flickering screen that is my life, it is as if I had never left. All things in life are cyclical and I have returned to the beginning again. Once more at the helm of my life left to sail the wicked seas that is this horrible world. What new, exciting and annoying things will I have to write about? I don�t know. All I ask of you, my faithful readers, is to stand at attention, eyes and ears alert. Be ready, my faithful (and some unfaithful) readers, for the other shoe is soon to fall.
Episode V: I'm Not Fucking Samoan..............................2/17/04)
I met some readers this weekend, while attending the first annual anti-valentines day party in Kansas City. One nice young lady in particular said that she only reads the things in bold type. There are so many things that I can say about that comment, but I�m going to reserve myself and only say that I�m sorry. I�m sorry that I can�t bring myself to bold an entire article, so you�re just going to have to power through this one Ms. Carly. However, I did promise that my title would be the one that you see above. Don�t ask, it�s not worth it. Suffice it to say that the promise was made whilst drunk and wearing a badly drawn on mustache. Comedy at it�s finest.
I wasn�t going to tell anyone about this class, as I felt that it was too embarrassing, but something happened today that really pissed me off.
Somehow the powers that be, decided that I need another English class because the one I placed out of at the University of Texas with an �A� wasn�t going to cut it for all those research papers and Thesis� that I�m going to have to write as a nurse. But I went to class and didn�t complain because I�m willing to do what it takes to get this over with. My first impression of the Professor is that I like her. She�s young, funny, and pretty easy going. Then she drops the bomb, our first writing assignment. Care to guess what it was? Actually, don�t even waste your time because what I�m about to tell you will make you dumber. �My favorite holiday, and why.� You have to be fucking joking me here. Why not just make it �what I did this summer� and get it over with? �Oh, and one more thing, next class, bring a personal item in and we�ll have show and tell.� Show and tell? Are you kidding? FUCKING SHOW AND TELL?
So, now I have two courses of action. I can write a shitty essay and get an �A� or I can actually put effort into this and maybe grow as a person and a writer. I make the best of this asinine assignment, I make it personal, I even send it to friends to help edit. I think this course of action is commendable seeing that the assignment was �My favorite FUCKING holiday, and why.� My heart quivers every time I write that phrase.
I picked up my essay this morning. I read her comments. I became angry. Why you ask? Because they were retarded. She essentially took her little red pen out and started nit picking. I understand that grammatical errors are important to note, but telling me that I should only space down one space instead of my two between my name and the title? How is that even relevant? Her only other comments were found at the conclusion of my piece. �Nice job, sounds like a lot of fun.�
Nice job? NICE FUCKING JOB? This piece should have made your fucking eyes orgasm. I know that I sound pompous and arrogant here, but come on, lets be honest with ourselves. She thinks so lowly of our class that our first assignment was, well, �My favorite holiday and why.� (arghhhhh�..) At least I didn�t write �Christmas: I love my family and Jesus� which I�m pretty sure everyone else did. Why do I think that? Because show and tell consisted of having to see pictures of 30 women�s boyfriends, families, or husbands. Good thing I hadn�t eaten yet because I would have projectile vomited all over everyone �Exorcist� style.
She makes no comments on the personal aspects of the story. She makes no mention of my brilliant use of the English language. I guaran-fucking-tee you that nobody else used �booze-soaked orgy of sin� or even knows what �sally forth� means. All she did was pull out that red pen and assign me an arbitrary grade. 97%? Where the fuck did that come from? How did you quantify that? Did she add up all my comma mis-uses? Did I get a minus 1 for centering the title wrong? Did writing skill get me any points? If I had vomited on a page but used proper grammar, would I have received a 100%?
Maybe I�m taking all of this too personally. Maybe I�m taking it too hard. I don�t think that I received a bad grade, I am just at a loss as to how she arrived at that grade. I am also angry that I put part of my soul out there, for her to read, and her only reply is �nice job. Sounds like fun.� Yeah, the party was fun. But you know what isn�t fun, a painful divorce and loss of a family that you never really had in the first place. Jesus. Perhaps I should thank her though; she did give me something to bitch about. So�.
Grade this shit, bitch.
If you care to, here is the essay that I wrote for class:
New Years: A time for loving and forgetting
At five, I showed a particular fondness for Easter. Don�t ask me why, maybe I liked the brightly colored eggs. By the time I hit ten, I loved Halloween. What�s better than dressing up in poorly made costumes and threatening complete strangers for candy? Of course there was always one constant: Christmas. My reasons for loving Christmas were simple (I was a capitalist), maximum amount of presents. As I began to age, holidays took on different meanings and the one clear winner has become quite obvious, New Year�s.
Every other widely accepted holiday carries family obligations, a plethora of dinners and gatherings. Every holiday that is, except New Year�s. In fact New Year�s is almost always spent away from the family in a booze-soaked orgy of sin. As a child, my family would sometimes stay up until midnight, light one pathetic sparkler and head off to bed. During my junior year in high school my family, much like my beloved first car, broke down into nothingness. I was at boarding school that year, my sister was away at college and my mother and father were living in Saudi Arabia. Not really the nuclear family, but not such a bad setup for me. I can vividly remember getting the phone call. A dark, cold, and emotionless voice simply informed me that �your mother and I are getting a divorce,� and that was that. �Great,� I thought to myself �looks like Christmas is at Grandma�s this year.� And to be entirely truthful, that was a better option than flying halfway around the world to celebrate a holiday with your self-loathing family in a country that forbids the celebration of said holiday anyway. So off to Missouri I went to celebrate with the only loving family that I knew. It was there where some of the best friends I have ever made lived, and it was there where a new tradition was born. Separate from my past I began to carefully construct new rituals with the only people that I could trust and believe in.
Every year at my friend Dallas� house we have our New Year�s bash. Though our gaggle of friends might be scattered about the country, and sometimes the world, we always try to make it back. Although the ranks are almost never full we manage to sally forth and make do with what we have. The night always begins the same. Dallas and I meet up sometime in the early afternoon and prepare our shopping list. It is usually just the extra things that we need to go with the items already purchased by his parents. He has parents possessing uncanny patience and most admirable generosity. This list most likely includes more liquor, beer, and always more food. Returning from the store we quickly set to work chilling all that needs to be chilled and preparing for everything that will be cooked. Dallas� mother has usually put in a great deal of work at this point, having already prepared a cornucopia of delicious snacks. However, Dallas much like myself, has never been one to leave well enough alone. One year we spent well over five hours preparing, tasting, and finishing off our own additions to the New Year�s banquet, all the while �sampling� some of the finer beverages we have to offer. Being properly primed for the guests is one tip they don�t teach you in �Martha Stewart: Living.�
Like a flock of birds, the partygoers generally arrive en masse bringing with them a rag tag assortment of hooch, musical instruments, recording devices, pets, food, and most importantly, cheer. We quickly and excitedly catch up from where we inevitably left off last year. As the night rockets along, copious amounts of alcohol and food are consumed and an exponential amount of fun is being created. Many times throughout the night I will sit back, thus removing myself from the group and look over them all, with their beaming faces and hearty laughs and think to myself, �These people are what matter to me, these people are my family.� As midnight approaches our party has usually degenerated to the point of dirty practical jokes, sub-zero hot tub forays, slurred �I love you�s,� and gregarious group hugs. Sometime before the countdown begins, a concerned mother will turn on the television in fears that we all might actually miss the beginning of the next year. In a frenzied rush to the kitchen we get our hands on as much of the proverbial �bubbly� as we can and return to the spectacle at hand. In unison we count down the last seconds of the past and hurriedly turn our faces towards the future in a salvo of popping corks. Our spirits lifted and cleansed we greet the New Year for as many more hours as we can before one by one we fall asleep and dream beautiful drunken dreams of what the future holds. If I were home, it�s doubtful that my parents would have even bothered staying up to greet this New Year.
My family has never given me much reason to celebrate. It seems that everything started there has ended badly. So I carried my wounded heart off and found a place where it belongs, surrounded by kindred spirits. New Year�s is a celebration of the future, but for me it is also a thankful nod to the past. It is the bridge that connects who we were to what we wish to become.