Update

Got a new soche prof a few weeks ago. The Sociology Dept actually listened to our complaints and hooked us up with a more sane woman. She disregarded our old mid-term and gave us two weeks to do a make-up one, which is coincidentally due Thurs. >< I knew I should have started it. I don't loathe showing up at class anymore. We tend to have great discussions, though the damn yackety bitch who ALWAYS has to state her opinion does get on my nerves.

I am fucked for the next two weeks. Because my 1st newspaper is having publishing issues, it can only grant me one issue and I'm short of my requirement for Jour. That means I had to find a new paper. Came across this nice one that caters to the Asian students. They freaked when they saw me sign up for four articles. But I don't have a choice. My deadlines are each like a few days apart and I still have to finish the three for my original newspaper. Not to mention, my soche mid-term, my lit essay, and miscellaneous Jour articles. So glad I opted out of NaNoWriMo this year. I have enough trouble just finding time to WRITE.

Had some holiday fun with Comp Sci. One word sums it up: SCARY. But I got to see some old buddies again, including Gabe and Will and got to watch "An American Werewolf in London" out of the deal. The rest of the night was just me fawning over certain couples and trying to comprehend the "orgy" with my one good eye. The other went bad after I put on too much eyeliner for my cat costume. I got to wear my ears and tail. I'm happy.

And I need to play more Go. I totally embarass myself half the time I show up. I think I'm learning but I'm not sure what. I am having fun though. That's a good thing, I guess. And it gives me something to do other than to broil my mind with Smallville.

 
A whopping case of WTF

My crazy Sociology prof walked out of class 15 minutes into it today. We had just taken our first test a week ago and the median was 72. Nobody got an A. Apparently, the whole class was really pissed off about it and was trying to get the prof to curve or at least talk about the test in class. She told us that this had never happened before and basically that we were all slackers. Then, things got really heated. She told us to learn the paper she handed out ourselves and that we would be tested on it and then gathered all of her stuff and walked out. I should mention that only 5 people out of a class of 30 were heckling her. I went to check on my exam grade since I haven't seen it yet, but she had taken down the tests and had locked her door. She had the radio on so she couldn't hear anybody. I checked the paper from the other class that had been put up and it was literally identical to our results. 0_o Someone else from the class said that the prof had claimed that she had made some mistakes and therefore given us some more points since Tuesday. However, now the median is 64. WTF?

We all went down to speak to the department head. She listened to us rant for a while. I have no idea what she plans to do about it. -_-;; I really hate this class.

I took my one jour midterm. I hope I got an A. I knew the whole thing; it was just a matter of phrasing. I'm also doing a bit better in my other jour class. The C's aren't as frequent and I even got a B+ the other day.

Oh, I have to make sure to get things done today before I got see my free-screening of Veronica Guerin tonight. I have to finish some jour articles, work on some of my stuff, and figure out how the hell I plan on doing my 8pg jour project.

In other news, I have a new house that's dangerously close to my aunt. I might have to break out the heavy artillery. But it's pretty and not next to snobs, though there's a drunk next door. The basement is all nice and warm and wooded. My brother wants to live down there. That's fine with me. I'll just take his extra-large room for my posters. Dad even says we can get Comcast for once. ^^ We're right now deciding how to keep Dru since we don't have much of a yard, but my cats are no problem. Except for Nikki, who still needs to get spayed SOON.

Might go see Bad Boys 2 tomorrow night. It's free at my school.

 
Skipping classes is fun.

Yep, I skipped Sociology again. This is probably bad since we have a test on Thursday. But I figured it was a more productive use of my time to sleep and rest my brain for my more intellectual class, Gay Lit. Gay Lit was fun too. We got into huge fights about whether or not there should even be a quest for gay identity through literature and how we often too much of ourselves into the material to see things. These people should talk to fangirls. ^^;; Near, the end one of the students pointed out the one explicitly erotic scene in the book, a scene that combined religious fervor with sexual ecstasy. It was amusing when the student claimed he had found something sexual in the book. The professor muses, "All right. Hot man on man sex." You aren't going to hear your professor say that in any other class. XD

Ethics wants to kill me but I'm going to fight back. I had to go Wed and I had a killer headache. It didn't get any better. We still had our usual fun debating and arguing with each other about whether we should name rape victims or their accusers and talking about whether it was right to manipulate stories. Though, we did spend a good hour of the class discussing the hw that confused everyone and the upcoming eight-page paper. Now, we have one of these due practically every or every other week. It's going to be the death of me. Plus, we have to do one-page ethic problem summaries from the news and summaries of our reading. At least, I know that I can do my idea of Saddam's sons for the project.

I got a B- on my court assignment in my other jour class. This made me insanely happy, considering that I worked quite hard on it and called the lawyers and DirecTV practically everyday. Tonight, I have to go to some boring town meeting and try to squeeze a story out of that. But hey, no classes at all on Monday thanks to Yom Kippur. Joy.

Working on "La Voz Latina" is proving to be a fun challenge. I get to report on cool discussions and get to introduce topics that are important to me. I guess I should probably finish some of my articles. ^^;; Too bad, my one story was shortened to a brief for timeliness. I'm really looking forward on doing this massive project on Langley Park. Maybe I can get some decent clips and "The Baltimore Sun" will actually acknowledge me when I apply for an internship. Of course, it does kill my idea of hanging at home until Monday night since I have to come back late Sunday (if Dad agrees) so I can go with my editor to gather more information for an article. I already have to wait to go home until Friday because of some other thing I have to cover.

I need to go grocery shopping so badly. The prices here are insane! Though I do enjoy Chipotle with Tom, even if I do talk his ear off. As many of my other friends who've run into me this week have noticed, being sick puts me into a very talkative mode oddly.

Damn, I don't want to change my wolf picture on my calendar. The September wolf looks so much more regal than the October wolf. ><

 
Finding Nemo is about WHAT?

Wah la, my big return from hurricane post. Isabel was lame but I hear that it thrashed my boardwalk. *cries* I spent the whole time playing RPG games with CompSci and terrfiying everyone with my Emily Dickison poetry. William warned me that if he wrote Emily Dickison on his upcoming Astronomy test, he would blame me. We played more of the dumb "Dice of Fury" game, which for some reason William and I tend to really enjoy. We make it so lame by making the nonsense actual attacks and defense manuevers. Tom and Patty joined us but I think it got too ridiculous after that. Sometime, after that we played Magic the Gathering and I got my ass kicked because all of the special beginners packs Tom made me really SUCKED. I was up against a creature-destruction pack with green protection and I was playing ALL GREEN. >< Or I was up against a deck of flyers and the only one of my creatures that could fly sucked ass. I also attempted to watch Velvet Goldmine that day. It was whack and I probably would have understood it more if I had been paying attention instead of playing cards. It freaked out Comp Sci. XD Maybe I should buy it. ^o^

My insane jour prof has given us an assignment that requires me to call lawyers, DirecTV, and a law analyst. I'm cheating on the last one and getting my uncle to get me in touch with one of his buddies so that guy can explain to me the case. But I think it is ridiculous. I know if some student called me about a case just for an assignment, which might as well be just for the hell of it, I would be reluctant to answer. I'm undecided about this prof. I keep getting C+s, a hell of a lot better than Fs. I think I would normally have gotten an F on my last assignment with my old prof because I used "more than" instead of the exact number. So he's more lenient, I think. But he always gives us stuff that is so impossibly difficult for a person not affiliated with a newspaper to get access to.

My other jour professor cancelled class this week, which really blows because I need to ask him about my big project. We have to write an 8 pg paper on an ethical problem. Of course, I want to do one about how unethical it was to show the dead bodies of Uday and Qusay on the national news. But since I can't find large pictures or the actual people who took the pictures, I'm not sure who I need to get in touch with. Do I argue that all the stations were unethical or just one particular one? I can't argue that the picture itself was unethical. Just the decision to air it. I need to email him.

English...uh, I should try to find some Navajo books.

Gay Lit was fun. We had some lady who edited our Emily Dickison book come and talk to us. She talked about Bruce Springstein. That was cool. She also gave me lots of cool quotes, which work better on my LJ so I will probably post them there. And our lit prof is so awesome. She gave us until this Tuesday to do our poetry analysis paper. I still don't know which poem I will do a close reading of. I'm not very good at analyzing poetry. In general, I have a very harsh look on poetry. Too deep and pretentious for my tastes. Maybe I'll choose one of the poems about bees since I talked about that so much in class. But this Cather book, I'm reading, it's going to be on my LJ for being so friggin' BORING. To date, I have only enjoyed 1 book written by a lesbian. I don't know if it's there style or what. They just are so overly descriptive.

La Voz Latina writing is doing good. I have a good idea that actually has a strong basis with me. I want to write about Latinos who feel displaced among their culture because they have been raised so completely American. Other than that, I get to co-write this HUGE piece about a Latino district near the school. It's going to kill me. I have no idea why I took it, but I so need clips this year. I will not run away again.

And back to UBER-PSYCHO sociology lady. We didn't have class last week because of the hurricane and then she cancelled class because of some family issue, which she spent a good 20 minutes of class-time explaining. She's one of those people who just likes to hear herself talk. She pushed back our test, thank god, and gave us an extension on our Outlook papers. I guess I can cut her some slack for that. But she spent ALL day today talking about her odd friends. Normally, I wouldn't mind because we do talk about gender identity in that class but not when it takes up so much time that we don't even discuss what we were supposed to have read. And then, to top it all of, she talks about Ellen Degeneres in "Finding Nemo" and how the movie is about how it's OK to be different. She seems Nemo's deformed fin as a representation of some gender identity. WTF? The movie I saw was about independence and finding your own strength. Nemo's fin was only important because it held him back and made his father overly protective. It had nothing to do with identity. Odd lady.

BTW, I'm going to see "Finding Nemo" again tonight. ^_^

And "Pirates of the Caribbean" is coming to my school theatre on the 10th!!! *joygasm*

 
Whitman doesn't always have to be boring.

Slept through Sociology today. Half on purpose, half by accident. When I talked with Dad the other night, he's the one who told me to miss one day and see what I missed. I could gauge how much I get from class from that. I did enjoy the two hours it took to read the stuff in the classbook. Though, I did get annoyed by the overly liberal tone, mostly the theory that American let the drug crime perpetually continue just so it can keep the sterotypes and racism that are connected with the drug world. It also had a huge ass essay about how sucky our country was. Other than those two slip-ups, I enjoyed it terribly.

The "Calamus" poems proved that Whitman can be interesting. They are the best part of his stuff that I ever read. They ditch the constant lists and tedium to go with more romantic and subtle pieces. Totally homoerotic but about a thousand times better than the "Song of Myself." His post Civil War stuff is beautiful too. I thank my Gay Lit course for showing us this more intimate side of Whitman, away from his prescriptions for democracy and babble about unity.

Oh, the one thing I forgot to mention the other day was that I got to see Howard Dean at my school. He was ok and since I can't get Lieberman, his being Jewish, I am willing to back Dean. Actually, aside from Sharpton and Kerry, I'd probably vote for anyone besides Bush.

 
Gender Sociology is the only thing that can make Tuesdays suck.

Someone actually posed the question in my Soc class, "Are we actually going to learn anything about women's studies anytime today?" He had a valid point. Again, we had the professor going on about nonsense in the Outlook section of The Washington Post. She wouldn't stop, even when she realized how much time had been wasted. She told us that we would be tasted on the material anyway, even if she didn't get to it. I really need to switch sections. Then, we had those damn opinionated students, who have to bitch about how much worse people have it in other countries and how gender stereotyping is the least of women's worries. That's all tragic and everything, but save it for another class. We are taking this class to learn about the SOCIOLOGY of gender, people. Not to hear you debate and bitch about every little thing that you FEEL relates to women. Hell, we're lucky if it even relates to women at all. I hate that class. I'm going to stop going, I swear, and just read the book. ;_;

Now, Gay Lit always perks me up. We got to learn the difference between homoerotic, homosocial, and homosexual today. We even convinced the professor to watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy tonight. Practically everyone in the class loved it. One of the gay guys was going on about how it made his straight friends better dressers. "Screws up your gadar, huh?" the professor asked him. ^_^ Whitman is much more interesting in this class because we get to talk about his "devices" to introduce homosexual situations without blatantly raising public scrutiny. We digressed as well, but it's more understandable in this class because we stay vaguely on topic at least. The professor introduced as to the term "metrosexual" to represent guys who get facials and shop and do other things that used to be construed as "queer." She emphasized society's overall interest in the "queer" world throughout the summer. Some girl even referred to "metrosexuals" as a sort of male tomboys. It was a great comparison.

Oh, and I got to see Raven again, my old buddy from High School. We took journalism together and used to sneak into the computer labs and design web pages for Sailormoon. The journalism teacher seemed to get very annoyed at Raven. Maybe I can talk to her again soon. She's in my Gay Lit course.

Got to go out and do my favorite thing about journalism--interviews. This has to be the one thing that really gets me passionate and into journalism. I love to hear people's stories and share them with others. Some are very withdrawn and barely talkative. While, others are vibrant and engaging and will launch into full-scale rants that make for great article material. They are people I can easily joke around with during the interview and ask more pressing questions since I can already tell they are comfortable talking to me. My in-class article will probably suck balls, but the information leading up to it was worth the trouble.

Ethics follows on the trails of journalism interviewing. I also have a blast in that class. It's three hours long but we get out early because we opt out of a mid-break. I hope the class continues on like this for the rest of the semester. It will become my favorite course. We do have lots of work, summarizing readings, analyzing ethical decisions made by other papers, and tons of reading but none of it's terribly boring. And I talk up a storm in that class. I think it annoys the professor after a while but he's pretty cool. We have lots of opinionated students in that class too but it's OK in this instance. We talk about the different ethical standards for print and tv journalism. The professor uses great examples such as playfully calling one student and asshole and asking if it's all right for another student to print an article quoting him as saying that. It's always an active environment and we do very little actual lecturing. Definitely, one of my faves for now.

 
What class is this again?

Can't make myself write anything intelligent just yet so I decided to post. Last night's class reading proved to me that Whitman is a soft porn writer, that Sociology books don't have to suck, and that Ethics are way more complicated than people like to think.

Today's Sociology class proved that my professor is an airhead. She always comes into class, asking what class this is. I swear one time I just want to tell her that this isn't the class she's looking for. Then, I can go back to sleep. She tried to make a revised schedule since she fucked up the last one by using the wrong book to designate assignments. That went horribly wrong as she screwed up the point system and took away the optionalism from the HUGE writing assignment. She caved when half the class pleaded so it's optional again. But originally the optional assignment was worth 100 points all together with 20 points for each paper. Then, there were 3 other tests, including the final. Now she only has 4 papers planned and that would only get her up to 80 points. I tried to explain this but I don't know if it will sink in.

I am so glad I'll get 8 hours of sleep prior to this class because otherwise I would pass out. The professor goes off on tangents easily. Today, she was spouting off something about public school reform and Bush's promise of vouchers. I don't think she likes Bush. Now, this class is about Gender Sociology, what does that have to do with school vouchers? This descended into a debate over who was more anti-feminist: conservative Bush or sexist pig Clinton. One of the girls in the class wouldn't let this topic go and in fact, got pretty heated. Out of nowhere, came the discussion about Hillary Clinton being a lesbian. For a class in Gender Sociology, this woman sure likes to talk about homosexual topics. ^^;; Anyway, the class is only 45 minutes long and she spent half on freaky-ass tangents that taught us nothing. I learned more from reading the book. Oh, and she even let us out 15 minutes early because she was all confused as to what she was doing. This might be another one of those classes that I just read the book and stay home and sleep.