Now, to presuppose you; let's assume that you're wondering why oh why I had to walk so very far this Wednesday - when, surely, isn't it re-enrolment week at university? Surely that involves a twenty minute registration sojourn, and then a pub lunch? Not quite. More like up at 7, straight lectures and introductions, reminiscence, acquaintance, and acquiescence to the new syllabus. It also involved what I would call an African Pub Lunch; in that I ate 3 chips, which tasted strangely like potatoes eaten whilst they were still growing in the ground; and got served a coke by a woman who used to be three feet taller, before she had to have a whole new torso made from skin grafts. Seriously; what was going on with those arms? I know you're not meant to judge, but... well, it was clearly a fag fire, or she fell in the deep fat fryer. And... well, if it was either of those, I have no sympathy. I've managed twenty years on this fine earth without ever having fallen into a deep fat fryer, and I've also managed five years on this fine earth without ever falling asleep whilst smoking, and causing a conflagration.
So, anyway, reintroduction, whatever, something like that. It has way too many names; and I'm pretty sure that if you looked them all up on Answers.com you'd find the last six are obsolete, and not in fact real. Fictionalised by a verbose egoist. I suppose maybe they don't like to use the same word over and over again (in the multitudinous rain of brochures they throw at you from all directions) - but, I think we'd let them off to be honest. Considering said brochures cannot have been proof-read, or if they were, were done so by either a child or an amoeba. Which would explain a lot of the lecturers at this fine institution (nominated for contributions to entrepreneurship), and why they all look as if they've evolved from homo sapiens into a regressive state of vacancy: Let's breed out the beneficial adaptations by marrying mermaids. Or something like that. Probably. Vestigial intellect (anyone for biology jokes?) Wow. Lost my train there. Sorry, that's tangential to the extreme. What was I saying? Oh yes...
So, the day of enrolment (re:) and it's filled with lots of pointless information that you retain for around 18 seconds. Which is nice. No one takes notes during the first day back; most especially not during quasi-informatics. It's pointless. Except these girls in front of me, it was great. I laughed. Three of them were furiously scribbling during a CRM (careers and research management [obligatory pseudo-subject worth a pittance]) intro., and two of the three were all serious and making sure they got everything down (which was pointless, because it was all featured in the brochures I spoke of earlier), and the other was just writing her name in really intricate street-style calligraphy. It was great. It was like: "I'm going to fit in with my friends, but I don't really want to take notes, so I'll hide my pad and write my own name instead." Who tags their own name on their own notes? Perhaps if you had a still-hand, and could squeeze it into the box at the top left of medium-ruled A4 paper (I love that box, afterthought) - but taking half a page? No, thanks. Pointless. A hospital wall? Sure. A train? Naturally. An independent bookstore? I'm there. My own paper? Erm... No. I have some standards.
So the information basically just goes in one side and out the other side - which is nice. CRM has offered some excellent opportunities in terms of plenaries, though. One on publishing, several on journalism, one on teaching, and one on EFL and teaching abroad. I'm going to attend those four; as well as one on doing further education, and MA (masters). I might also go to a few more, but you have to attend at least four to be able to pass the year (don't ask about the other 'criteria' for passing this unit). They've all got moderately successful guest-speakers, and they are all opportunities for a bit of networking, as the wanky-execs would say - depending on how affable I can make myself. I was once called a 'convivial host', but that was a description I gave to myself, so I dunno how true it is.
Few other things worth a mention from the day: a certain chain of pubs famed for their low-class clientèle, outrageously cheap beers, fights, drugs, but a stringent over-18's policy; make really rubbish chips. I hate undercooked chips. I don't really like chips to start with; they're so bland - I don't approve of a food you have to cook in salt, and then add salt to, to make it taste of anything. Chips are the gastro equivalent of the substandard excuse for humanity who goes to a michellin starred restaurant, and asks for salt on their carpaccio (was as pompous as I could make it :D). No, I really do think chips are bland, and I don't like salting my food - but I don't think of it in the way I've said I do. I'd be alone if I was that pretentious. I'm no Mr. Casaubon. Then again, I would love to talk as he does, it's so funny. Beautifully concise diction he has:
"The young man, I confess, is not otherwise an object of interest to me, nor need we, I think, discuss his future course, which it is not ours to determine beyond the limits which I have sufficiently indicated."
In case anyone is lost now. That's from Middlemarch. I didn't have to search for that, it was just there when I opened the book. It goes on like that for nine hundred pages. Sigh. Anyway. Distraction.
Moving on in the notables: spent some time with a person who I treated very badly; and the atmosphere wasn't too disagreeable - so that was nice. Good on her. More interestingly, perhaps, I think, depending, I suppose, on what you view as engaging, in terms of, say, intellectualism, or, say, titillation; I'd say, perhaps, that it's requisite to the digestion of this diatribe for your preference to lie in the former, and, though not without acknowledgement of its topical import, not, say, in the latter, which, though engaging in and of itself, is not pernicious to the issue at hand.
I should probably make that 300,000 words longer. Then I could publish it under a pseudonym: "B. Cunt" or something. Fuck Eliot anyway, she's dead. God bless knowledge of defamation laws. Knew this degree would come in handy, or something. Maybe. Dunno. You?
Anything else interesting happen to me? Got given my new tutor for the year; he's a really good guy: Interesting, engaging, friendly, and amusing - precisely what you want in terms of personal tutors. In fact, our entire department is staffed by genial people you'd actually like to know; rather than the normal snobs and arseholes. The CRM, for instance, was delivered by a witty lady, working at the behest of the course leader. Said course leader turned up at the end, and grilled a front-row student about what he wants to do with his life, why, and how. He managed to pull it off without aplomb, and instead came across like a total narcissistic prig who should probably fuck off, and try to get his jollies somewhere else - not in mocking people a third of his age. What kind of moron does that? Not like he's made a lot of his career. Oh? Course leader of a fairly pointless 10-credit unit in year 2 of university? Congratulations. You should be so proud.
New timetable makes me want to bleed all over my desk. 8 - 16 hours a week, depending on CRM attendance; placement of the French EC (extra-curricula) and my general disposition towards attendance. Irritatingly, given the fact that I'm already doing something ec, I decided to pass up the opportunity to work for The Innocence Project. Now, it's not something I want to wholly discount, because I genuinely think it's something worth doing - but it requires an obligatory and minimum 4 hours of work a week, and that's not something I can include in a year when my dissertation is starting to be talked about. It is, however, something I might consider next year - depending on how well my special exercise is coming along - or perhaps during my MA (if I get that far). Basically, IP, are a group of students who deal with miscarriages of justice - working at the bequest of prisoners, or families of prisoners (I think). The idea is popular in America, I think Ohio IP has something like 20,000 cases on its books at the moment. Obviously; our little local one, catering to 200,000 residents (of which there are only a few hundred, possibly in the thousand, people who qualify to apply for appeal), has nowhere near like these numbers. Anyway, the idea of it is that, under supervision, teams of students browse case notes, visit crime scenes, interview prisoners, etc. - and then they see if there's any incongruity within the case report, or the forensic evidence. I think at the moment they've got three cases they're hoping to put to the CCRC (Criminal Cases Review Commission).
I would definitely be up for doing something like that - because by definition no justice system is ever infallible. I think it's extremely worthwhile, and would help bolster my CV. Not going to lie; altruism is unobtainable, at least I'm not pretending to be selfless. It would be nice to help out though. But yeah, not this semester, at least. Plus the guy who runs it looked like a bit of a stick in the mud. University, after all, is about enjoying yourself and getting a decent qualification. It cannot be managed just one, without the other. Obviously, an ad hominem justification for opting-out of a decent, and helpful, piece of work, is ludicrous - but it doesn't help.
Er... Running out of things to say, I guess. Am enjoying writing today, so want to keep jabbering - though I guess people have already stopped listening/reading. You should be able to get me on audiobook; I'd be fabulous. So that was my first day: Walking, lectures, pub, fun, and games, and hate. It's all composite to a rich day, I suppose, but I'd really rather it was without the last one.
Oh, that reminds me of two things actually. I was wondering the other day (and, this is probably really common knowledge, and going to make me look like a moron) what the 'middle one' of 'former' and 'latter' is. Obviously, former refers to the first, and latter to the last - I wanted to know if there was anything to refer to the ones in-between. There is: Former and latter are only supposed to be used for descriptions of two items; where former can be synonymous with 'one, and latter with 'two'. For more than two objects, you're meant to use first, second, third, or first-named, second-named, third-named, etc.. So there we go; fairly simple information I expect, but I was ignorant nonetheless. Hopefully one of the five were too :).
The other thing I just remembered is completely and utterly unrelated to what I was just harping on about - so I might go back and reorder this in a minute, and then of course this whole sentence will be a complete waste of time because everything will already be in the right order, consciously, anyway, though not chronologically. Which reminds me of something else. There is someone in a lot of my lectures who doesn't like me, which is fine, I don't like her either. My reasoning is that she's a complete idiot. And I mean that. I don't mean "oh a bit blonde?", I mean "How is this person even functioning?" Anyway, she was asking me where I lived, and I made a comment using the words "chronologically" and "geographically"; to which she replied: "This is why I hate you." Well, that seems a tad unnecessary to me. In case anyone is wondering, I don't really talk like this in real life - but as soon as I start tapping, crap spews out. In normality, I speak fairly simply, and succinctly. Amusingly I haven't yet got to the other thing I remembered, although this boring story will act as a beautiful segue for me.
Where I was, when I heard that lovely declamation of her loathing, was in a queue for the logistical re-enrolment. The signing of paperwork, general housekeeping, and the standing in a line for ages on end achieving nothing-ness-ment. Which was great. I didn't understand the system though. To speak briefly; my university is divided into several different 'schools', within those schools are sub-divisions for each individual subject, such as 'english', within the 'School of Social, historical, and literary studies'. This 9am re-enrolment was for SSHLS (school of social...), and it was planned appallingly. You'd think that logic would dictate a staggered arrival of people, wouldn't you? Just have a few at 9, a few at 9.10, a few at 9.20, etc. You'd still be able to get through two hundred-odd people in an hour, and it would be much smoother. As it was, all 200 turned up at the same time and had to spend up to 40 minutes queuing to have their paperwork checked and validated. If anyone arrived after 9.10, they were late to the next portion of the day - an important lecture on the syllabus structure, as well as the guest speaker from IP. Dunno, just seemed stupid to me.
I decided I couldn't be bothered to rearrange this litany. And though I normally like to end on a high note, or a nice phrase, I used up all my brain at the beginning of this. So... instead I'll end like Eddie Izzard.
Bye.
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