Get Time Machine for Gertrude Stein

Reading Rainbow. You remember Reading Rainbow right? Encouraging the young to read, good, old, classic-'Butterfly in the Sky' Lamar told us "But you don't have to take my word for it" and cut away to a bright eyed child hefting up a bright and colorful book. Although the clear agenda of that show (and as in all cases, the word 'agenda' should be read with evil undertones) is to promote reading, the child testimonials did a good job exemplifying the reasons people like to read: most simply, it's enjoyable.



For this week's assignment in my literature class, I had to read Gertrude Stein's convoluted mess of an impossibility: "The Autobiography of Alice Toklas by Gertrude Stein." Mired in relating this hopeless abomination to anything cerebral, I can't help imagine anything that could possibly be further from Reading Rainbow's enamoring ideal. If we lived in a strong-arm totalitarian government, that would permit someone younger than the age of consent, to be forced to read this book and then present it on television, the colorful 80's style transition effects would unveil a dead child slumped over and next to the smoking gun on the table, Gertrude Stein's book would be propped up. This book is insufferably pointless and bad. Not bad in the way that 'it's just not the material I'm interested in', because I've been known to enjoy reading biographies and autobiographies. Not bad in the way that I just couldn't 'get it.' Trust me, I got this book. I endured headaches and repeated flaring bouts of depression slogging from one uneventful page to the next, all babbling anecdotes as Gertrude Stein, devoted partner to Alice B Toklas, writes her autobiography for her and shifts the entire focus back on to Gertrude Stein.

I'm sure she thought it was very clever. I know she thinks everything she does is very clever. This entire book does nothing but recount all the ways Toklas (as written by Stein) thinks that Gertrude Stein is nothing short of a demigod of genius. There is no plot, there are certainly no nuances of a relationship between the two, THERE IS ONLY STEIN. Whomever Stein interacts with in one sampling to the next changes a little, but right as rain, each one doesn't do anything but tell Stein what a damn godsend genius she is.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not angry that this book has no substance; I've read lots of things in the spectrum of substance-lite to no substance. I endured a friend reading me her favorite Harry-slash-Drake fan fiction (And a big FU to Rowling by the way, I swear the only reason you conceived the polyjuice potion was to help sexually repressed fans toolbox their porn writing). Gertrude Stein manages to write in such a way that is cognitively impossible to comprehend. Reading this book, I'm painfully aware that she predates computers and spell check. Halfway through the book I'm fairly convinced that she predates the formal structure the English language, reading English literature a century further back never gave me this much trouble. Trying to read this alphabet soup of mis-punctuation I have to assume that the genius Mademoiselle Stein is illiterate and borderline mentally impaired. 49% of her sentences are fragments and another 49% are run-on-sentences with a jumble of punctuation. The remaining 2% of 'genius' are, of course, both:

"Gertrude Stein has never ceased to be thankful to her mother for neither forgetting or forgetting. Imagine, she has said to me, if my mother had forgiven her sister-in-law and my father had gone into business with my uncle and we had lived and been brought up in New York, imagine, she says, how horrible. We would have been rich instead of being reasonably poor but imagine how horrible to have been brought up in New York."

I literally pulled that off the page I was reviewing before I started writing this blog. I didn't go searching for it. Imagine, an entire book with nothing but those sentences, divided into seven chapters that themselves feel like individual books in a series! Now imagine that there is absolutely no point to anything written, other than of course, letting Gertrude Stein publicly self-service her ego. The chapters themselves are divided by time periods, which would help organize a coherent thought process, but those the time periods outlined are are really more of general topics than limitations to the stream of consciousness/dialog; Stein drifts back to events that happened before or to conversations that happened afterward with little recognizable indication between past-past, past-present, and past-future.

In short, this book is bad. Bad in a way that I thought no book could ever really acheive. Some books are bad because they have no real substance to them. Some books are bad because they are poorly organized or they're not well written. Some books are bad because you get tired of hearing the author parrot the people around them into saying how much they whorship the authors ever waking momment. This book does all the above, but in such a long, monotonous, utterly boring way that it can't even turn 'bad' full circle into 'so bad it's good'. This book made me not want to never read another book or anything else ever again. I wish there was a way to gouge this book from my memory. I wish I could locate the parts of my brain where this book, without consent, took up a part of my memory, so that I could set fire to it and sear it out of my existence forever. I wish I could invent a time machine for the sole purpose of going back and slapping Stein and her publisher full in the face... or damn near anything to try to stop what could quite possibly be the worst thing to ever happen to the english lanuage: this book. And so that's where they book got me. 'Get Time Machine for Gertrude Stein.'

The Turbo Cynic

Oh my! Where have you been all of my life?!



I need to get one of these that loops this for life. Think of the blissful simplicity of being an agitated pessimistic asshole! Oh how I'd sleep at night if I didn't have the vestigial dregs of empathy or consideration.

Turning Myself In! I Need Help!

So it shouldn't come as any surprise that I'm insane. I'm talking about being mentally unstable... chemically impulsive... prone to unprovoked wild bouts of seemingly random out-of-my-mind, Adam-'Farmer in the Dell' crazy over here!

That's what I'm hoping I won't be saying next week. Why would I think that? Because I'm about to utilize A&M's (probably much under-utilized) counseling services. I'm not being forced against my will or anything. I've never really liked the idea of talking about feelings to strangers before, but I've sometimes wondered if it could help. I don't feel like I'm about to have a mental break down or anything; in other words I don't feel explicitly vulnerable, but at the same time I'm recognizing a little bit of stress stirring up pensive lethargy in my semester so far... so assuming all this cockamamie works, I stand to get some real benefit from it. It's a free service, so I figure why not. Also it'll give me something to blog about.

I should probably commit to being disappointed by writing down my expectations for this: I'm hoping that I can be given someone who will listen with my problems and concerns and give me back perspective and alternative options for how to overcome the walls I keep stumbling over, using the university's other facilities as a platform to lead off from.

So follow me along on a magical journey, as I sign up at the Student Counseling Center: I called in and was directed to open up a registration file online based off the UIN. The website services were listed. I guess they made divisions, but overall it came off as being pretty vague. It didn't tell me who I would be talking with, I was disappointed that I wasn't bludgeoned with notifications that my privacy would be protected in this service. (That's something I'd kind of like to be bludgeoned with)

From there I had to enter some basic information about me. Apparently scholastic probation can require some people to go to this thing. If this service is what I think it is, I have to wonder why I wasn't put on it when I was struggling in my various majors... but I'm getting ahead of myself. We don't know how effective this is going to be yet. Maybe it's a waste of time.

I'm treated to a long list of common sources of stress and I have to mark all the ones that I feel have stressed my life in the past 2 weeks and to what extent. I can see how a lot of them overlap... some are really vague (like 'Depression' and 'Decision Making') and some are really explicit ('Conflict with Parents on Career Choice' and 'Reading/Comprehending Textbooks'). The one that really caught my eye going down was 'Math Anxiety', but if I were to begin to give my opinion of the (College Station) A&M Math Department, we'd get way off track. There were so many things listed I had a hard time keeping them all relative. I ended up just marking the ones I though applied to me first and then went back to determine the severity. I picked 'Academics/Coursework/Grades', 'Anxiety/Fear/Nervousness', 'Finding Occupational Information', 'Dating Concerns' and a few others. I feel like I sound like a crack head when I list them out like that, but trust me I feel better already passing over all the ones I didn't feel stressed by. See! Already I feel more sane and competent! Success!

From there I had to enter in short sentences why I wanted to use the service and the likely hood I felt like counseling would help (I guess that one is to catch those sent by advisors?). Then I had to identify and rank the severity of feelings, like I did above. Like I said, most of this is is pretty basic, unexciting, and largely preemptive (Anxiety again?) After that I had to do the same with a list of strengths (I think I'm 'moderately' good at 'coping with stress' and I have a 'good sense of humor'). Wow, and now I'm feeling even more capable! It's like they channeled everything additive about preteen online quizzes! (Hmmm, I don't know what Harry Potter character I am...)

With that done, it was on to what looked like a near to last page: lots of confidentiality stuff. (So it is in there after all!) It also asked if they were allowed to record sessions on audio or video... it recommended allowing recording for better counseling options; I don't really have a problem with that sort of thing... although I still don't understand why that would make a difference. After that it brought up a list of open appointment times, the earliest being this Friday and the latest being 2 weeks away. I got an early Friday appointment and that's all there was to it.

We'll see how this all goes. Hopefully this is an opportunity to be even more impressed with my university.

Locked Out

It kind of annoys me when teachers lock doors before classes start. I mean I get it, they don't want people coming in late and disrupting their class. I can see how that part would easily get annoying. I'd be a little insulted if my students never showed up on time. But on the other side of the coin it's not like students don't get charged for coming late. 'Late work not accepted' is an easy way to combat that. Just have stuff due at the beginning and don't take it late. And it's not like professors are grading machines, professors work with students all the time and I'd like to think it's easy to know who needs a break and who doesn't care about your class.

Exhibit A: I got locked out of my class today. Suffice to say, I'm ignored at the door. I miss a grade that was due at the beginning, I get counted 'absent' and arbitrarily lose more points, but ultimately I miss the lecture/discussion that I read up for and was actually looking forward to. This isn't a class I took because I'm trying to make a grade and graduate, it's actually the one that I was most excited about taking! And I'm hoping it applies toward a job! (Would I be overloading my hours otherwise? No. I'm lazy.) Of course after three days of it all I've gotten is bad juju. (._. ) * disappointments*

Locking the door, I can see why you'd do it, and professors are allowed to make up their classes however they want... but it still feels so... juvenile. Kind of like how showing to class late is juvenile? Yes. I'd say it's just about exactly that bad.

Beck, Palin, Fox News

It's kind of old news now... but then again I have lot of old news I never logged on about.

Sarah Palin hired by Fox News? I wasn't foso if i wuz goin 2 *headdesk or lolz when I hear dat (trendy is like a second language to me).

I think I might have done both, a dangerous maneuver to be done while driving, leave it to professionals, please. To welcome her on board Glen Beck, clearly enamored with big bright puppy dog eyes, "interviewed" her. This 'let me read you pages of my journal' (not even kidding) stuff is just plaine sappy! Five minutes into the beginning and already you can tell this is going to be an hour of sweet, sweet, right-wing love poetry.

Remember back in the campaign, when right wingers were calling Obama the antichrist because some people were more or less worshipping him like an idol... I'm curious to know if you see any parallels to that here. To worship Omaba, you had to be hopelessly optimistic. Apparently, to roll on with the now golden Palin cash cow, you need to be able to suspend you knowledge of basic american history (see later below).

It's an hour long interview. There's a lot of... material. More than enough for the... *drumroll*

NEW SARAH PALIN DRINKING GAME!!!

Here's how you play at home: sit down and watch Sarah Palin talking with alcohol. But every time she says something hilariously dumb, remember her legions of followers and her ever expanding political platform and drink until the world is happy again. Just to warn you, no one actually wins the Sarah Palin Drinking Game, it's over when the last person loses.

Need a sample round? Get ready and set, then watch the clip below!

Now lets not be obvious. Lets give her at least the benefit of the doubt and try to pretend that she avoided the most popular, common answer of 'Thomas Jefferson' in order to seem more rogue... so she really didn't find herself giving a five year old 'don't know it' answer of 'All of them!' and really she was so well informed that OH MY GOD THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE JUST CAUSED THE CAPILLARIES IN MY LEFT EYE TO HEMORRHAGE!!!
Happy Drinking!!!

Now Blogs = Education?

I attended my english/studies class today. The professor was just as energetic as I remember her being last semester before I had to switch out of her class for physical anthro. We spent the first half of the class talking about blogs. Apparently class themed blogging is now the way some classes involve students. She described what a blog is (to a generation that grew up on xanga and livejournal ;-P) and I thought to myself... oh yeah... I have some of those...

I really like the idea... I just hope I'm not expected to try to sound smart or anything :p

Ball Drop 2009

It's been a crappy break, not going to lie. I feel like I've spent this last half of it stressing out or being depressed. Mom is done with surgeries though and I'm eager for school to start up! But before I run galavanting off into the sunset, I wanted to look back on a few parts of 2009. Here's a brief rundown of most of the important stuff roughly in order:

• Started out trying to re-date
• Attending Blinn
• Loved dead people class
• Thought I had cavities (but didn't)
• Adopted the infamous ferrets from the shelter
• Transfered back to A&M (Stat=no fun. Rec=great!)
• Got a DSi
• Trip to Las Vegas
• Tried hiring artists (yikes!)
• Broke up
• Grandpa passed away
• Transfered back to A&M (again. damn you Howdy)
• Tried dating people (who I found myself for the first time)
• Went to an awkward 'passion party' (broke her foot how?)
• Ferrets fighting fleas!! Massive bombing maneuvers!
• Lost my damn mind
• Made lots of new friends around Sweets
• Grim died
• Obama spoke on campus
• Annna lived with me!
• Tried Nanowrimo
• Wrote a research paper on Animorphs
• Ran a half marathon with mom, dad, and sarah
• made all As and Bs!
• Trip to Austin!
• xmas with mom in the hospital
• scoured San Antonio for bubble tea
• We all watched Samuel L Jackson get eaten Mako sharks for new years!

Goodbye 2009 and all your instability! You were a year of lots of changes, transitions, and a heaping dose of drama... but now get out

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A little late is better than never, I'm officially starting 2010 when I wake up tomorrow! here's to a rockin year in 010!