Bullet-Point Friday

• Don't stress out about misplacing/losing my debit card. With lack of sleep and new drugs and several frustrating factors worming their way into my otherwise sedate and calm life, I'm bound to lose more than a little plastic card along the way, especially when my wallet has barely recovered from the move back into my Texan life. I've narrowed down possible places I could've left it: the ATM, doctor's office, the college, the university, Fadi's restaurant, my office, my classroom, the faculty office, the copy room, the car, Starbucks in the basement of the Bank of American bldg. downtown, my home, or (perhaps worst of all) my wallet.
• Don't cry out loud. Keep it inside; learn how to hide your feelings. (This Melissa Manchester moment was brought to you by the letter J and the number 3.)
• Drink strong coffee while having even stronger conversations with Jola and Stephen while enjoying the cool afternoon in San Francisco starting this afternoon until Sunday afternoon.
• Write that short bio my boss asked me for three weeks ago, and begin looking at the teaching schedule for the spring '08 term.
• Accept the vajra when it strikes as it is always already striking yet again.
  

Euro-Franz gets a new handy

One of the many (mis)adventures yesterday was signing up for a new cell phone. I can now be reached at +49.1520.647-9009 while in Deutschland, Euroland (AKA the United States of Europe). To receive SMS is always free, so let your thumbs do the walking! (For those of you in (Fortress) Amerika, be sure to use the international dialing code 011 first.)

I am especially interested in receiving well wishes for 16 years of moderately good behavior. Perhaps I really did deserve the muffin I had with my afternoon coffee. And now that I (finally) have access to wireless, I should be in contact/touch more frequently despite the fact that this language program is kicking me in the head. (But I'll save the bitchy blog posts for later.) For now, bis bald.

Simple Things

It really is the simple things that make life worth living. The complicated shit only makes me mad.

I’ve been spending much more time at the local YMCA. Lately I’m exercising at least five times a week, mostly there but also sometimes in the neighborhood. I’ve even been much more able to engage in the senseless chitchat with the woman behind the counter at the Y. I think it’s funny she wished me a happy fathers’ day and then asked if my father was still alive. Do I not exude the fatherly vibe myself? Am I (visibly) at that age where fathers typically die off?

I’ve been diligently reading since the spring term ended, preparing for the courses I’ll be taking as well as those I’ll be teaching this fall. I’ve read some really hard books. I wonder why all knowledge always comes in book format? To study music, you have to read books about music. To study art, you have to read books about art. I’m beginning to hate books more and more.

I’ve been slacking when it comes to studying German on my own. I’ve only gotten through the first six lessons in the Pimsleur program. Last summer I’d gotten through the entire Russian I course (30 lessons) in the same amount of time and had began Russian II. I hope my dedication comes back once I’m actually sitting in class in Germany next month.

Tomorrow I’m returning all the books I’ve checked out to the university library. I have eleven. And the Pimsleur German CDs. I need to get them back since I’ll be gone when it’s time to renew them online. And when I return, the fall semester will already be in its second week.

Today, the CIA released hundreds of pages of internal reports on assassination plots, secret drug testing, and spying on Americans. That’s nothing: you should see the secret reports I keep on the government.

What’s in heavy rotation on my iPod this week: “North American Scum” by LCD Soundsystem, “Everyman Everywoman” by Yoko Ono w/ Blow Up, “Hammering in My Head” by Garbage, “Girlfriend is Better” by Talking Heads, “Bump!” by Nylon Room, and “Guilt is a Useless Emotion (Mac Quayle Vocal Mix)” by New Order. Maybe I should write a book about it.

Thanxa notta latté

Yes, it’s time again to see my neurologists regarding my latest case of insomnia. Today I woke up at 2:30am. And one day last week I wasn’t able to fall asleep until 5:30am.

Memorial Day was utterly forgettable in the drizzle. It has pissed rain in Dallas every day for the past couple of weeks. At first, I thought maybe my sleep was off because of the cloudy, gray skies. But that’s no excuse even if it is true. Tomorrow I see the dentist, and then I’ll call about an appointment at the sleep lab.

I haven’t had a decent cup of coffee out in Dallas in such a long time. I’ve been compiling a list of places not to order coffee from. The list is tentatively entitled “Thanxa notta latté.” First on the list: Whole Foods. (Of course, why are you even buying a latté at Whole Foods in the first place? The only things you should buy from that big “green” monster is soap, lotion, and Snapea Crisps (because the World Market only sells the Caesar-flavored kind), and that’s only because you can’t tear yourself away from the fetish of “organic” and “biodegradable,” and “not tested on animals.” Each word worth a premium according to the posted prices down each aisle. At this rate, only the rich will be able to afford “-free” food!)

Next: the newest coffee shop to open up: Saxbys. Had a terrible latté over the weekend and then made it back yesterday for an even worse café au lait. The only thing more unforgivable is the Jesus-vibe: Biblical quotations from Proverbs and Zechariah in the bathroom, for fuck sake! And KLTY broadcast in the sterile, less-than Starbucks interior. (KLTY, pronounced clitty, is the local Jesus-fucking-Christ pop song station; you know, where they remove all the “baby girls” and “sweet-things,” and replace them with “Jesus.”) If Starbucks is Starsux, then Saxbys has quickly become Suxbys. Make me a fuckin’ decent cup of coffee!

I’m gonna be real mad when my doctor tells me it’s all because of this shitty coffee that I can’t sleep....

Sexy New Beast

Since the semester ended almost two weeks ago, I've been busy trying to get my summer life on track: reading, cleaning, purging, socializing, etc., etc. And most importantly, I've been setting up my new sexy beast of a computer. It's fast, sleek, and oh-so-smart. Plus it looks good in black and gray. (As does this aging blogger who remembers the '80s with fondness.) Bear with me for the next several days as I spend way too much time transferring files and settings from my old desktop and installing software. If all goes well, this will be the sweet babycakes on which I write my dissertation ... as well as my next album and book. (Unless I fill the 250 GB of memory with porn first! Meow!)

Easy on the Eyes

I never claimed to be all that professional when it came to being a professor. In fact, there have been several times when I complained about individual students right here on this very blog. I intend to do that again now. Well, actually, I just want to make a few comments.

Despite whatever inappropriate things I may write here, it would still never be any less appropriate than the comments on one student’s final exam yesterday: “I respect your knowledge. Your [sic] also easy on the eyes. Thanks!” Now am I to assume that this student intended to declare, “You’re also easy on the eyes,” or did this student instead forget to write a word between “Your” and “also”? Did this student mean to include “face” in this declaration? Perhaps “ass”? “Clothes” maybe? Whatever. As long as something is easy on said student’s eyes, that’s all that matters, I guess.

Here’s a silly-gism—not to be confused with a formal syllogism from logic—that one student included in an answer on the final: “Plato is a man; Plato is mortal; therefore, Plato is a man.” I’m still laughing. What a lovely tautology! Another student chose to use mathematical notation to get the same point across: “a=b, b=c, c=c” with no “if,” “then,” or “therefore” and absolutely no logic. It’s the little things that mean so much to an underpaid professor.

Now it’s time to enjoy this so-called spring break (yes, three weeks before spring begins!) by reading as much as I can and getting back to the gym (which I’ve neglected while teaching these past three weeks). I’d hate to be hard on the eyes, after all.

Preview

Here we are at the lull before the final maelstrom. I’ve already taught the past two weekends (17 hours; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday), and I have one more weekend to go. But this last mega-session for the mini-semester is my favorite, beginning with Symbolism and working our way up to the current year. I spend 1/3 of the term on the last 100 years after cramming in everything from the Big Bang and the evolution of humankind up to the year 1900. During the first two weekends, I give them the bases for everything they think and believe, and in the last few hours I take it all away. Plus I get to talk about Le Pétomane and Cloaca. You know your college tuition money is well spent when the professor talks about shitting and farting! When my introduction to the humanities course ends Sunday I’ll have an entire week to work ahead for my own classes. I hope to finish the required readings by the end of the month so I can devote all of April to writing my two term papers and finishing my translation projects.

Next three performances I plan to attend: Kitchen Dog Theater’s production of Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck; Rickie Lee Jones at the Lakewood Theater; and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6.

Alright, that’s enough for now. I have to go clean up cat vomit. (Yes, this entry did revolve around shit, puke, and flatulence. Good times.)

Overachieving Incompetence

There is very little that’s worse than dealing with overachieving incompetents. I have (at least) one course this semester that is organized and administered by such people. The schedule has changed no less than four times since it was officially set in stone back in December. If I would’ve bought all their required texts, I would’ve paid about $500. If I would’ve been keeping up with the required reading of said texts, I would’ve read more than 1000 pages … per week. As if I would’ve had time buying texts and reading them when I’m required to attend class every Monday for three hours as well as the required seven-hour session at least once a month on a Saturday. Luckily I haven’t bought any of the required texts, and I’ve read no more than 10 pages altogether just to get the gist of what there are going to try to discuss in our meetings. I’m now getting to the point where I have absolutely no desire to read their own submissions of their work. The requirement is to submit 2-10 pages per workshop, and the average submission has been closer to twenty pages. It would’ve been much higher if I wouldn’t have stuck to the minimum two-page requirement. That’s one requirement I can get behind! Also, there’s no reason I need to read something that hasn’t even been proofread and spellchecked. When I download their papers and open them in MS Word, my screen is filled with red squiggles under every misspelled word. Are they fucking blind? Or have they in their sheer incompetence managed to turn off this function on their own computers? Am I really asking too much for a Ph.D. student to know how to use commas properly? For my own required presentation I’ll do on the last day of the semester, I borrowed the required text through interlibrary loan, chose five pages that I’m going to introduce and talk about, and photocopied the excerpt for myself and my colleagues. Anything more would be asking too much. At this point, it should be required (and enough) to be a functional and useful human being.

Snow Day

Snow day in Dallas?!?! I've heard of global warming, but what is this local freezing? Since I greatly despise Texas summers, I've decided that I won't complain about the current weather/temperature. Besides, it has been kind of nice being able to wear my winter coat for the first time since living in Poland during the 2001-2 winter. I like breaking ice off the car, too. It reminds me of when I was a cave man during the Ice Age in a previous life.

I'm already well into the spring semester. My schedule is a real bear: Mondays and Tuesdays I'm on campus from about 9:00 am until 10:00 pm. But then I get to stay at home for the remainder of the week, reading naked in bed surrounded by cats. Jealous much?

A couple of weeks ago I asked my friend Sh- to remind me about something I've forgotten about myself. She seems one of the best qualified for such a task considering we've known each other since about 1987. She told me about a letter I wrote her when I was living in Austin in 1992 about wanting to visit Odessa. I was thinking about Odessa, Ukraine--yes, the Ukrainian spelling is Одеса, with only one "s," but that was before I knew such (useful) things--but she assumed I was talking about Odessa, Texas. She probably didn't get what I was saying about the sea there, and I probably didn't get what she was saying about possibly meeting me there when she was going to drive home. I had forgotten about wanting to visit Odesa so long ago and probably didn't even think that much about it when I finally headed there by train during the summer of 2000. It's (sometimes) good to have people around that know and can help you remember who you are.

And finally, birthday greetings to Tetsuya: お誕生日おめでとうございます。君が大好きな。