Friday, October 07, 2005
Some freshman boy in the ancient sexuality class always brings in the laptop his mommy and daddy bought for him, to play some obnoxious game with many loud, laser sound-effects and much key-clacking. I want to give his face a clacking... with my fist. Much to the relief of my severely strained nerves, he apparently played hooky from class this afternoon, as did another half of the class. I missed them not.
The mushroom pizza I ate for lunch made my breath smell like the mushroom pizza I ate for lunch. I might have to neutralize this unpleasantness with a mocha smoothie, imbibed as I complete Greek homework and begin the next dreaded German reading. I feel more confident about the readings, having built up a bit more vocabulary and become more aware of the nuances of German writing style (at least as it is presented in a stilted, American-textbook fashion), but it consumes much more time than I have readily available. Time is an elusive enemy that I must somehow annihilate.
The German and philosophy exams were both complete flops, in my overall exam-test-taking career. Der Bonzo indicated that everyone did well on his exam, but the topics we responded to were nearly all obscure references from the text. I believe I may have confused the role of Friedrich die Weise with the accomplishments of the Enlightenment ruler, Friedrich I. The first two sections had to be responded to completely auf Deutsch, with the last essay, more over-arching, to be written in English. Haggled as I was by the previous forty minutes of expressing vague answers to questions in a language that I do not fluently speak, my English sentences were probably even less comprehensible. Scheisse.
For the philosophy essay exam, I studied everything I did not know well- Hume, Locke, their critics' responses- and was met, naturally, with everything we had studied at the beginning of the semester. I understood all of that, but did not elaborate nearly as much as I could have. The only response I felt relatively confident about was the one about Descartes' "evil demon" scenario.
The University apparently sent every professor a memo to inform students about the on-campus depression screenings for Depression Awareness Week. Der Bonzo mentioned it, and noted that the memo even stipulated that professors could offer extra credit points as an incentive to draw students in.
Knowing what this latest exam might contribute to my stellar GPA, I went and filled out a screening form. The lady I handed it to said she would have to do a little math with my responses in order to analyze them. Then, when she actually looked at my answers, she muttered, "Oh, I do have some math here." How reassuring- I'm probably bipolar.
Unfortunately, I am not bipolar, only moderately depressed. The nice lady recommended I utilize Tech's student counseling services. Paranthetically, I feel that if Tech lowered its tuition rate and other miscellaneous charges, the students utilizing its counseling services would substantially decrease. In my case, I doubt much benefit would come from losing more time that I do not have to have someone tell me things about myself that I already know but either have not changed or cannot conceivably change without cooperation from people within the wider world. Plus, I don't necessarily mind crying, but I do feel, however irrationally, that doing it in front of other people somehow makes me less of a man.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 1:25 PM]