through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered . . .

Hi. I just wrote a serious academic analysis of the word "feels."

I fucking love college.

And while I'm talking about what a genius I am, I got back an essay exam for my German history class, and I feel it is only fair that I share the results so you guys can make fun of me.

The topic was on the factors that led to the fall of the Weimar Republic and subsequent rise of the Nazi party; first a list, then analysis of a few of the factors listed.

I did really well with the list for the most part! I got the hyperinflation and the Versailles Treaty and the 1929 stock market crash and the political extremism and all kinds of stuff. My professor only had one note to offer, about the one teeny-tiny little factor that I forgot to include. The note reads as follows:

"also - Hitler."

OH RIGHT HIM.

I don't even know how I left him off the list. Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish reading a book. About Hitler. So I can write a paper tomorrow. About Hitler.

*facepalm*

As mentioned yesterday, I'm taking a summer course on the films of Stanley Kubrick, which is structured to give us enough time to watch an entire movie in one class period. Which is pretty awesome. Especially since I realized upon looking at the list of movies we'll be seeing that I hadn't seen any of his films before. That's a lot of pop culture I've missed out on! So I've been enjoying this class a lot so far.

(Also, the room is airconditioned. I miss it already.)

So far we've watched and discussed 2001 and A Clockwork Orange, and today we screened Barry Lyndon. Juuust barely. That is a long-ass movie and we needed like every second of classtime to get the whole thing in - it ended exactly when class ended.

karaokegal asked that I post my thoughts on Barry Lyndon after watching, so!

( The short version is, it was my favorite so far. The long version is long and has spoilers, so I'm cutting since it's lesser known than most of his other movies so there might actually be plot points people aren't familiar with. )

There is a fuckton of other stuff I could talk about in this movie, and no doubt a full fuckton of other stuff I didn't even catch, but basically it is awesome and everyone should see it. The end.

(I need an icon that better demonstrates flailing excitement. Any suggestions?)

I slept last night! For, like, eight and a half hours! The nurse practitioner at the student health center prescribed me some Ambien (along with a billion warnings about avoiding addiction, so yes, I know, I'll be careful), and it woooorked. Thank god. I also scheduled an appointment for counselling, since they offer a certain number of free counselling sessions per year and it is becoming steadily more obvious that something is the fuck wrong with me if my mind is so fired up at night that it's screwing up my sleep so badly.

If I'm really lucky, I might even be able to give that presentation tomorrow that I've had to put off twice already because of this stupid insomnia. Which my professor has been very understanding about, but I feel like a jerk anyway. Important notice if you attend school of any kind: Do not get insomnia near the end of the semester! It will fuck your scholastic shit up!

In other news, since I feel like I should tell you guys about something other than how my life sucks lately because I can't sleep, I registered for my fall classes today! Which officially turns my four-year degree into an at-least-five-year degree, but whatever, these things happen. I'm in no hurry to graduate anyway. Being a student beats the shit out of being in the real grown-up world.

But anyway! I'm going to take an English class on WWI (studying it via literature, obvs); a class called Oral Interpretation that is basically learning how to read stuff out loud without being boring, a skill I could stand to hone, in search of the ever-elusive Fine Arts credit; a History class on early Germany taught by that History professor I like so much; and a senior seminar (another requirement) called Aphra Behn and the Libertine Tradition, which I don't know exactly what that is (all I know about libertine stuff I learned from the movie Libertine, most of which I have forgotten by now anyway) but it sounds awesome. AND they're all afternoon classes like I had last semester, which will help a lot with keeping a more consistent sleep pattern than I've had this semester.

So that's what's on my mind today. Now I have to go hit the laundromat; I had to wear Laundry Day clothes to campus today because I was too tired over the weekend to face doing laundry. If nothing else, I'm learning a thing or two about getting shit done when I feel good enough to not worry about counting spoons.

Today I had two classes, Medieval Popular Culture and Historical Construction of Sexuality.

Each of my professors took the opportunity to discuss Jesus's foreskin.

I don't even know, you guys.

So I finally figured out how to use the school's bookstore website to check out what I'll need to buy for books this semester. (Why did I just figure this out after three semesters here? Because I didn't fucking know I could. They don't tell you any of this shit, you have to find it out for yourself. I really miss SMCC sometimes. They understand how to make themselves easily accessible to their students.)

Okay, first, the list that comes up includes the ISBN code. Isn't that sweet, how they think I'm not going to take that shit and run with it to Amazon to find used copies even cheaper than their used copies?

Second, the list for my US Popular Culture class, which is a History class, is longer than the lists for both my English classes put together. I am not fooled by this for a second - those classes have anthologies - but I was entertained by the fact that I will be reading multiple novels for a history course.

One of said novels, which I will not be reading, is Catcher in the Rye. HELL TO THE FUCKING NO I HATE THAT BOOK SO MUCH. SO FUCKING MUCH. FLAMES! FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE! Seriously, it's not worth giving myself a stroke from rage because I can't reach into the book and beat Holden Caulfield senseless. Hate. HATE. HAAAAAATE. And you know what's funny? I know people on the internets who hate that fucking book as much as I do, but people IRL are always shocked, SHOCKED I SAY, that anyone could possibly hate it. So this should be interesting.

So, Irish Literature and Culture? The class where I handed in a crappy final paper that narrowly made the minimum required length, was padded with quotes, and just barely had a central thesis tying together the individual discussions of works that I pretty much just crapped out as I went along and didn't even proofread, because I was so pissed off about being assigned a seven to ten page paper at the last possible minute during finals period in a class that was a waste of time anyway? Oh, and also the grade for that paper was one of, like, three grades actually contributing to the final grade in the class, and the other two grades were B papers that were definitely way better than that one?

. . . I got a B for that class.

My GPA and I are not complaining, but man, I don't get it. I expected, like, CONSEQUENCES for blowing that paper off the way I did, and I was fine with that. I'm not really a fan of getting grades I don't deserve, good or bad. I'm kinda used to my papers getting better grades than I expect - not to toot my own horn, but that'll happen in classes where you're one of very few people who seem to know how to write a damn paper, or have any talent for it, though I would presume that's less of a factor in higher level English classes - but this one was such a throwaway, I thought for sure it would be different.

Only grade left is the WWI&II class. I give up even trying to guess what I'll get there. The grading for that class is a lot more quantitative, since it's about facts, not analysis, and the professor included multiple choice questions as a major part of testing, but I'm so turned around now I don't know what to think.

Yesterday was my last day of the semester! I talked to my WWI&II prof about possibly minoring in History (I keep taking history classes, so I may as well, right?), for which I need an advisor in the History department, and he said he'd be happy to. :D

NOW NO MORE DISCUSSION OF SCHOOL OR SCHOOL-RELATED THINGS.

Today I played a bunch of demos from Big Fish Games. Now I am having a movie marathon. So far I've watched:

* Good Hair, a documentary about black women in America and their hair, and how natural black hair is considered undesirable and the industry for chemicals, items, weaves, etc, to achieve "white-looking" hair is RIDICULOUS and okay we discussed this a bit in my Soc class and it was really interesting. Plus Chris Rock is the - I don't even know what you call the guy who runs the documentary. The host? The narrator? The David Attenborough?

* Hellboy, which was watchable enough as long as the movie was focused on the characters and boring whenever shit started blowing up. (You can tell where my priorities lie. I used to watch Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for the plots, too.) Also, because I did just take that class on the World Wars, I found the Nazi origin story and presence of Rasputin to be hilarious.

OKAY NOW I'M DONE TALKING ABOUT SCHOOL-RELATED THINGS.

* The Invisible Child, which presents us with a nanny who is hired by a family in which the mother believes that there is a third child when there are really only two. The youngest child believes in this second sister, but the oldest and the dad know better and conspire to enable the delusion. It's a really interesting character study for a while as the nanny goes from weirded out to worried to actually accepting of the situation, and then it just takes this creepy-ass left turn. When the nanny is at the height of her concern over the situation, she contacts CFS. Then, as she gets sucked in and CFS finally gets around to checking up on things, she joins the father and oldest child in actively stonewalling and persuading them that the entire thing was a wacky misunderstanding. Which is all well and good, and could be a really intriguing study of Stockholm Syndrome and how people become convinced that an unsafe situation is perfectly okay - except that the movie tells us that this is all a GOOD thing. Preservation of the family at all costs! Oh, and the oldest kid is totally okay with having spent literally half her life pretending Maggie exists and it didn't damage her at all, and the youngest is gonna be okay because - check this out - Invisible Maggie conveniently takes ill and dies. Which is a logical presentation of the idea that the mother has stopped needing the delusion, but the movie insists that Maggie's "death" has tied up all loose ends and everyone is totally cool and won't need years of intensive therapy at all!

. . . yeah, it's a Lifetime movie. Surprise.

Next up: Jennifer's Body.

This weekend: Oh, yeah, I signed up for Yuletide, didn't I?

As things stand now, here are my plans for the next two days.

Sunday:

1. Shoot out of bed to download The Thick of It finale. That's been part of my routine every Sunday morning for almost two months, and I'm going to be sad to see it go. (Mind you, if anyone can get it to me sooner, I will owe you the firstborn I'm never going to have, or something.)
2. Judging from the reaction posts that I am currently forcing myself not to read (but still have tags and such), I will then fall down and die.
3. Perform self-resurrection.
4. Go for lunch and a movie with Mom, who has agreed to see the Boondock Saints sequel.
5. (optional) Facepalm quietly but repeatedly in my seat as this particular sequel proves itself to be every bit as unnecessary as I have believed it will be for the last decade.
6. Grocery shopping.
7. Preliminary work on Stupid So-Called Final paper - coming up with a thesis, picking the bits I'm going to use, and maybe write a bit of it. (My approach to papers is pretty casual; I'm only start anything at all on Sunday because of the seven-page minimum.

Monday:

1. Go to campus.
2. Spend day writing Stupid So-Called Final paper, because I can't focus on writing papers at home to save my life.
3. Hand in SSCF a day early, because Tuesday needs to be spent on studying for Wednesday's WWI&II test.

Which, by the way, my prof DID e-mail us on. I am vaguely proud of him.

. . . I am less proud of the part where he's going to teach a few last-minute things before we take the test, but eh, how else can he work it? That snow day was the worst fucking timing ever.

And after that, the semester shall officially be over. And I shall spend a week doing FUCK ALL before I pick up more hours at work for the rest of vacation.

Oh my GOD the semester is almost over. How did that happen? I have a test to go for each class - well, three tests and a takehome essay thingy - and then I'll be done by, I believe, a week from Wednesday. Yesterday, for the first time since September, I chose my own book to read.

I have two tests in a row with nothing but essay questions on Thursday. My hand is gonna fall off. So that should be interesting.

Almost all of my classes have been really great this semester, though, and I'm glad of it; I had a rocky couple of semesters beforehand, but I feel like I've finally settled in at USM and gotten the hang of the place. One of the classes has been a disappointment (Irish Literature and Culture - look, I may not be an expert, but I'm pretty sure that writers in Ireland in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century wrote more than just poetry, okay, and it would have been great to have read some of that too), but the other three (the class on Oscar Wilde I've mentioned a dozen times, Soc 101, and Word Wars I and II) have been really interesting and enjoyable. I've learned a lot, more than I have since maybe my second semester at SMCC a couple years ago. It isn't the first time I've taken a Soc class, but it is the second try at it I've had since starting college, and here's a statement of the obvious: the professor makes all the difference in the world. The first one at SMCC was a dry asshole who was always right and graded us on our fucking notes. I withdrew from the class like a few weeks shy of the end of the semester because I just couldn't take his shit anymore. This one, though, was an awesome woman who'd been teaching Soc in various branches for years, gave really absorbing lectures, and took care to give us different viewpoints, even unpopular ones. ESPECIALLY unpopular ones, so we'd have them to think about along with the standard stuff.

The professor from the World Wars class is one I had last semester for Western Civ; I really like him and his dry sense of humor and the fact that he is so grounded in the past that he calls photocopies "mimeos." It's endearing. And he, too, made the effort to include different perspectives on events. I think I'm going to miss him next semester.

The Oscar Wilde professor is teaching a class on gender and sexuality theory next semester that I'm taking. He assigns a lot of secondary essays written in Tiresome Academic Speak that make me want to hang myself, but next semester I'll be more prepared for it, thanks to having had the experience in dealing with it in this class. He taught the primary texts we read really well and I learned a lot about each of them, as well as the time period and the social and literary contexts for them. I look forward to taking another class with this guy; those stupid essays are worth it.

I look forward to next semester, in which I am also taking an English class about medieval popular culture, which should contrast nicely with the history class about American pop culture (note to self: talk to awesome history prof about possibility of History minor; might as well do something with all the history courses I keep taking), and have finally managed to sort my schedule out to get a class I need for a fine arts credit for a core requirement, Acting for Non-Majors. This is the third semester in a row I've tried to take that fucking thing, and I almost didn't get it this time around, except that someone was kind enough to drop out and I snagged their spot.

Of course, first I have a vacation, and I look forward to this too. Things to do during vacation:

* Work just enough to feed myself and pay bills; I should get either tax refund or student loan money or both in time to sort out my rent for next year, and I'm sick of wasting my winter vacation working enough to wreck it but not enough to cover rent. I need to start looking for a job where I can actually get full-time hours.

* Make dent in pile of books I have accumulated this semester. Start with Sweet Valley books; just because all the thinking and analysis has been fun doesn't mean my brain doesn't need the rest.

* Also dent stockpile of movies. Which got really big really fast.

* Rewatch The Thick of It and write discussion posts for episodes. Vacation should be long enough for me to do about one a day. Maybe this will get people to give it a try.

* milliways_bar stuff: get rename token for Javert and start playing him again now that I have figured out how to go about it a bit better; debut Jonathan after approval; either get things started with Clay or suck it up and delete him; let Cal and Applegate do as they will, within reason, and set up some threads I've been wanting to do for them.

. . . no idea how much of that I'll actually do, but I'm excited that I'll have the chance to do it.