cheating strategy

Things aren't great. I hate my classes, and I'm generally irritable and stressed lately. And tired. I forgot when it happened, but I thought about it, and I've been sleeping between 6-7 hours lately, and I'm more of a 10-hour guy. I think it's because I stay out with my friends, and I tell myself that's absolutely okay, because school or work shouldn't stomp out my social life, but then I get tired and grumpy. Still, my friends mean more to me than three extra hours of sleep.

This will be the only Japanese course I take at OCC, because this teacher is the only one who teaches it, and she's got a bitchy attitude. I will not put up with this shit for three more semesters. The first issue was when I missed a class, and she asked if I e-mailed her, and was being a bitch about semantics. The second was when she called on me to translate a sentence in Japanese. I knew I had been called on, and when I did, I went to read the sentence. Proper course of action, no? But she KEPT calling on me. First, it was "the gentleman sitting against the wall", then, "with the gray shirt", then, "with the long hair," then, "sitting alone with no one around him" (it was really only in front and back-- I WAS sitting NEXT to someone) and things like that. Each of those new comments would distract me from reading, so it was about a minute of that shit before I got to do what she asked me to. Fuck that class. I have the books, which we'll be using up until the LAST of FOUR COURSES, and Dr Mark Kane, who WON'T act like such an asshole, and WON'T take TWO FUCKING HOURS to teach a couple of things!!

Logic is still interesting, and there's really only one problem with it, and it's this chick who's kinda slow who always manages to stray into me and Richy's group, scraping for answers rather than contributing. She has an annoying voice and doesn't think, yet expects us to work for her. We don't. Last session she started wandering to other groups, so that's a positive sign.

Oh, I got a paper topic approved! "Transhumanism," which I've tentatively defined as "the artificial evolution of humanity by humanity." The issue (which in Logic terms, is a specific question about a general topic, something quite different from the Sean-Gripe definition) I've "found" is whether or not it will be realized, and the position I took was "yes." Basically, we're not just gonna replace, but enhance our bodies through medicine and technology. It sounds like we do that now, but I'm talking in the EXTREME, and not just pace makers and false limbs.

PoliSci would be loads of fun if the prof weren't so adversarial in his tone and the students weren't so dumb. They don't understand that despite the way it sounds, he's not trying to argue with or shit on anyone. He's trying to lecture. But there are at least two women who are dead set on "beating him" in an "argument." Ugh.

I'm not just irritable and grumpy, though, I've wandered into "intolerable" now. I'm finding it increasingly harder to deal with boredom. Grandma and I went to see the DSO perform some Samuel Barber stuff, and most of it was fun, but one of the longer pieces, Barber's Piano Concerto or something, was SO BORING. It was technically brilliant, but aesthetically anesthetic. Luckily they ended with Don Quixote, which was beautiful, if long (forty-minutes-for-one-song long). And yesterday, Dad was at Grandma's, and it was the usual goofiness until the Michaeliks showed up. Out of a sense of politeness, Ken, Derek, and I just shut up and sat around while the Grown-Ups talked. The Michaeliks were nice guys, but for most of the two hours we were there, we weren't hanging out with Dad and Grandma, we were watching them hang out with the Michaeliks. I'll admit I used dinner as an excuse, and I'm really sorry that I did, but I couldn't take it. I also wanted coke, and that gnawed at me for a while there too.

But I've become intolerable of minute pieces of boredom. And it's another one of those things I throw into the mix when I ask "How do regular people do this when I can't?!" Among that, there's "16 credit hour semesters," "40+ work hours a week AND having a life," "Work AND school AND life" "Put up with X amount of shit for X amount of time," (that one is best illustrated with Jonathan's job at Lowe's, where he's been working for a year and a half since he graduated college, and always talks about how he hates it, although it extends to much more than just occupation), but there are more, which either escape me at the moment or I haven't managed to make into a thought that would be coherent to someone else. How am I so intolerant of insignificant boredom when everyone else is fine?

I'm probably just stressed. I don't really unwind, either, I just screw around/procrastinate. But there are some things keeping it together for me, and one of them is time with friends. There's a real reason I refuse to give up social time, and it's because it helps to have people around. There's something my brother wrote once, about how he had previously believed he shouldn't be so close to his friends because they'd all leave, but it's something I completely reject. The only way my friends are getting away from me is kicking and screaming, and even then, most won't make it. Trust me on that one.

One gleaming light at the end of the tunnel is Eastern. I cannot WAIT to get back to Ypsi. Jon and I are gonna get an apartment together, and it's going to be the most awesome apartment arrangement ever. I liked living with Adam, but he was always working or with Courtney, so I never really SAW him. Jon has said he won't be working, and as of this writing he's single, so maybe I'll actually be living with a friend this time around. I don't blame Adam, though, he had to do so much just to stay afloat, it was nuts. I just need to get through this small-time bullshit and get out there.

I may take -one- more Japanese class at OCC, and it'll be out of convenience. I'll have all my Humanities credits out of the way if I do, and when I transfer to Eastern, if I don't test high enough on my own studies, I'll at least qualify to get into the Intermediate courses there. What I mean is, if I was good enough after studying under Mark Kane, I could take an aptitude test and sail past a course or two, although that's an ideal situation. I can work at it, though.

Sean