So I'm sure alot of people have already begun their new term, but I'd like to wish everyone luck.I fly back to the states in 6 hours. I don't think I got any good footage from here but I'll try and put something together for those who want it. It will be crap just warning you...

Thanks for the encouragement. Hope your semester goes well too. ^^

I'm a little scared of this term. I've got to conduct a rehearsal by myself for the first time tomorrow. *hides*

eeeep conducting, well good luck. I'm sure you'll do fine; at least better then myself who has no clue how to conduct or anything like that.

now an hour to go. I think time is against me cuz it keeps hopping ahead.

*neeeds coffeeeeee sooooon*

Sympathies and good luck to both of you. Being in charge of rehearsal I can't even imagine. I only play piano, which is a solo pursuit for the most part, so my rehearsal experience in that area is minimal, but I have been in a few plays--and no doubt given each of the directors their fair share of gray hairs-- so I know that things can get a little out of control (of course the worst experience probably belong to the student director who pretty much had to go it alone as the other play we were working on was much more complex in both content and direction, who was a freshman directing mostly older students, and the cast consisted of most of the comic types in the department. Poor dear.)

It's not school by any means, but tommorrow night I'm leading the discussion at my book group. At this point I'm the youngest or nearly the youngest one there. Yeah, it's just a book group, but apparently I've impressed some people with my previous comments-- read mostly the recall of useless, hoarded information-- and I'm known for usually having my head in a book of some kind or another, plus several of them know I aspire to write myself, and that I studied English. So, now I've got people coming up to me and saying how they're looking forward to this meeting since I'm presenting. So now I feel that I've got to perform.

Then add that we've just read two fairly serious books. As it's the month after Christmas and everyone is still recovering from the stress and being busy they told me to pick a light book. I wasn't expecting it but the woman who was going to present next said there was no way she could do it this month--incidentally, she's the one who recommended the book I'm talking about before the genesis of this book group-- so it's the old "hey, Catlady's always reading something, let's ask her". The informal powers that be suggested one of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books. I'm sure they're great books--and while I haven't read any of them, I do recall hearing that the author is male,which is sort of a trip-- but I thought I'd rather do a book that I really enjoyed and am already familiar with, so I made my own suggestion. At the time I figured it would work, it is a short book, not a difficult read and it has an animal related subject-- there are several animal lovers in the group. Now I sort of wish I'd gone with the others' suggestion because then no one can blame me if they think the book is stupid.

For the record, the book is The Fur Person by May Sarton. Virtually no one has heard of it. As a matter of fact, when I looked up some quick information on her on the web yesterday, it wasn't even listed in any of the list of her work that I found. It's the story of her cat, from the cat's point of view. Funny and apt, if you have had any kind of animal, but especially a cat. So, I had the reccommendation of the woman who told me about it in the first place, I enjoyed it, and my mother who read it as well, love it too. On the other hand, we've had all these serious books, and here comes Catlady with her silly little cat story. There's not a lot to be intellectual about involved in the book, other than I hope we can have some fun discussing the animals in our lives (note that not all of them are fur-people, but some clearly are ladies and gentlemen in fur coats). I'm going to try to work a little on the hero's journey in there, just to give a deeper prospective, but. . .

Yeah, so I'm a bit nervous.

good luck to you both in your upcoming terms. This term is going to be stressful but it sounds like fun too :)

God and peace
Vanessa :)

Ooohh - book club :) I always liked my book clubs, but preparing and leading one? I would be nervous too.

This semester is going to be crazy but fun for me. I came to the discovery that all of my classes have at least 1 12 page paper, add to that a web project, loads of reading and various and sundry teaching sessions for the classes - I'm going to lose my head. But the classes are fun subjects - Luther, Chaucer, Modern England history, and American Lit from 1900, so life could be worse.

Good luck everyone!

I don't think I know enough people who read and I'm so choosey I'll read 2 or 3 books in a span of 4 or 5 days get bored with the 3rd or 4th and quit a fourth way through pick it up 6 months later and most of the time I remember where I left off.

But I'm defiently going to try and read more I manage to read Stephen Fry's Autobiography. and the Pink Triangle over break and now reading The Gunseller.

Ooo we should start a book club on here or I can start one on LJ if anyone would be interested in joining but I don't want to be choosing the books.

I'm taking
-Development and Preproduction
-intro to Poetry
-Eng comp 2 (same prof as comp 1)
-Random and Ordered senses math for everyday life (not sure about the name, it's math and therefore it will be an evil class)
-Aesthetics of Cinema

I'm finally taking two classes within my major.

Oo, good luck, Catlady. I bet it'll be fine; a book doesn't necessarily have to be complex in the literary sense to be touching or enjoyable. And I like cat books. (Maybe next time you should do one of those novels where the guy's cats are the detectives--not sure what the series is called but I see it at bookstores a lot and it'd be like a compramise between your two choices. :lol: )

And I'm jealous, elfkey_echo. Those sound amazing. I've got Music History, which is awesome, but it kept me out of Shakespearean Tragedies, which I was disappointed about. And stupid, stupid math class kept me from taking a course on the Reformation movement, which I really wanted to do too. (Those classes aren't part of my major, but...I look at all the course offerings every semester and always end up wishing I had about six more years of school. Do you guys ever wish you could just do everything? <_< )

Book group went well. It pretty much leads itself and I didn't have to worry about hosting it at my place or food or anything, so that makes it much less complicated. It also turned out to be a smaller group than I thought and most people enjoyed it expect for the one confirmed non-cat person. Anway, my turn is over for now. Next is the biography of Madam Curie, written by one of her daughter, but I can't remember the name right now.

I think I may know the books you mean, Lily. Are they the Cat Who . . . books by Lilian Jackson Brown where there are two Siamese cats, though only one of them is really the sleuth? I've read a few. They're not exactly highbrow literature (not knocking it, I've become much less of a literary snob than I used to be), and the plot is at times repetitive (although much like House they have to be) but they are very funny. I read them too fast though, so usually I go for something longer (same problem with Doug Adams for the most part, incredibly fun to read, hilarious books, but since they're short I finish them in one afternoon; kind of like Chinese food, taste great, but you only stay full for an hour).

If you do like books about cats though, The Fur Person is one you'll probably enjoy and it isn't super long. The author is May Sarton, she's pretty prolific, but known mostly for her poetry from what I hear. The fur person in question is actually a cat she owned at one time.

And yes, I do know the feeling exactly with wanting to learn everything. I often said I would have majored in virtually everything in turn if I could have. If you can afford it, don't be in too big of a rush to get finished and take a couple "fun" classes every term, you'll probably be glad you did. I was absolutely determined not to do the "five (plus) year plan" and practically killed myself with work to avoid it and while I did take some classes I really enjoyed, I also wish that I hadn't been in such a big hurry. I love English and writing, and as unmarketable as it is, looking back I couldn't have done anything else, but I also love history, and philosphy might have been fun, as would theater--I'm no great shakes as an actress, but I love acting and reading plays, and have aspirations of writing a few--, I'd even do some of the sciences if I didn't have to worry about how my mediocre grades would affect my chances of graduate education (in med school or otherwise) because I'm fascinated by how things, especially the body, do and don't work. But I've now got enough of a reputation as a perpetual student as it is. If I studied everything I wanted even at just an undergraduate level, I'd never finish I'm sure. Still the advice to never stop learning is useful and as they say, never let school interfere with your education. You can actually, in my experience, learn a lot just by reading and keeping your eyes open too.

Of course my regret may have something to do with the fact that my history in relation to work has been kind of disappointing (probably my own fault, as my father would point out, no one told me not to major in business, after all).

Prpl, your classes sound interesting. I hope this term will go better for you than the last one did. At least the awful roommate finally moved on, right?

Also the book club thing is kind of strange, I don't know that I'm really the book club type, but I went to the first meeting because a neighbor of mine was in charge of presenting that month's book and I wanted to support her, then I sort of got captured. I've tended to be a sort of one (or two) genre reader for the most part, so it's probably good that I'm getting some exposure to what other people like to read, but I worry about coming up with ideas for what we ought to read next because of the limited appeal of some of the things I read. I tend to read non-fiction about animals or the outdoors, or Sci.Fi/Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Magical Realism kind of stuff, with the ocassional religous book thrown in; the first does have somewhat of a wider appeal, but the second category is what I read most and that is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, plus my sense of humor is a bit irreverant at times, which is also not everyone's cuppa. The religious books are not so much of a problem as the group is loosely affiliated with my church, but my volume of religious reading isn't really that high. Anway, I have to strain a bit to think of something with a wide enough appeal or at least think back to stuff I had to read for classes at university (the first time), but I have to think too about which are probably a little too dense for someone to read for fun, or at least for a normal person to read for fun (some of the technical ones I would read for fun, but I'm a bit of a epistemological, semantic, and linguistic geek).

Yes, bad room mate is gone. I'm just happy that my earliest class, Intro to Poetry, is at 10:30 and everything else is after noon. I could have done 3 film classes but the third one I could have taken the only classes that had space conflicted with House or were in the morning or didn't give me a free day.

I'm also hoping to be able to study abroad over the summer; and hopeful get 6 credits; since I'll be 6 credits short of being a Sophomore granted I don't shoot myself and not go to class and duck out of mid-term and final. In my defense the class bored me too no end well school does that anyways, but this was beyond boredom, this was my foot's more interesting then the class, and I'm not very interested in my own foot. Unless it becomes detached and has it's own soul, like that hand in Idle Hands. Otherwise I find it useful for walking, and I part of me that I'd miss if you cut it off. I also didn't need the class to graduate.

I love this semester. Everything is so much better with the bad room mate gone. I have the same class as one of my room mates so we go to together the teacher has a vile side, but other then that not bad. It's preproduction so it's alot of character and story development; which I like; my room mate doesn't as she wants to do editing, and is actually quite good at it. My other room mate and I have a class at the same time in the same building tuesdays and thursdays so we're planning to walk together; even though it's not the same class. I loved intro to poetry; at least that's what I can tell. It's going to be a fun class, picking apart and analyzing poems. The ex-room mate was straight edged and I tried to respect her; as in I didn't come in drunk, or at least tried not to (I'm not perfect, and it only happened once or twice). Now no one is straight edged so I can drink without someone looking down on me and thinking I'm a terrible person. I'm actually friends with the two room mates I had first semester; and my new one is actually cool. Everyone is cool that I hang out with this semester. I have english comp 2 next; but I'm sure I'll like it, as I have the same professor as comp 1.

sorry for boring you with my happiness, but you have no idea how much more I like this semester.

Happiness is good! :lol: :) Glad that life is going better for you this semester. It's funny how things can change like that just with getting rid of negative stuff. Yay for no more crummy roommates!!

My english class is an ethanography class. Which means I get to choose a section of the city to go to and interview people and observe. I think it's like I could go to greek town and learn about that culture and write about it. I love this type of stuff; not the going up to random people and finding out their life story, but learning about cultures and that sort of thing. Of course I'm dragging someone along cuz I hate doing stuff like that alone.

Ok in college. You should realize that it's college and people are going to have fun at night; and if you're too much of a douche to realize that then you shouldn't be living on campus. We got a noise complaint; well are room didn't but the room across the hall did, and my room plus at leat 4 other people are always over there. Everyone except me doesn't have class friday so they were all celebrating the weekend. Two RAs from the 10 and 11th floors (we're on the 7th) barged in and busted us; because of a noise complaint. The thing is we weren't being any louder then any other night, and I wasn't drinking nor we're three others and a 4th person just had a shot (she just began drinking, it was her 2nd time and she has yet to be drunk). I'd like to know who complained; because I do realize we're not allowed to have alcohol on campus, that's fine I'll do whatever they want. I'll go to some lame lecture on why alcohol is bad, or write an apology. I don't care; that's not what bugs me what bugs me is the fact that someone is lame enough instead of coming to the door and being like "You're being loud, please shut the fuck up!" they had to go complain. We think it's because they never get invited to anywhere fun. We lost our guest privileges, for me that's not a problem, as no one's coming up any time soon. For the others they had a bunch of guests coming. Still not a problem, as you can get someone else in the building check in and out your guests. One kid whose always over there, he got banned from the building (he wasn't drinking). Since there are two parties this weekend, we're going to go to them and getting totally smashed, because well if we can't have fun on campus; fine. We'll be good residents, until this all blows over. The thing is we can come in wasted, so that's what we'll do. I wish that our RA had been their, she would have warned us and gave us time to hide the stuff, in the bedrooms, as they aren't allowed to search our bedrooms. A little bit of the alcohol was mine left from the other night, but we had at least 50$ worth that got thrown out which is ridiculas. I should have chugged something while they were busting us, at least then I would have been drinking and less alcohol would have been wasted.


In may 5 of us are either getting a small house, or big apartment so we don't have to live on campus. Two of us are going to be 21 in November, and I would like to be able to drink in my home then, and not worry about being busted. Stupid dry campus, three of the people were over 21, and they're still going to get in trouble. I understand the rest of us weren't, so that's fine I get that the age is 21 and if you get in trouble for it while you're younger, their's consequences. Yeah, they suck but if you're going to drink underage you should at least realize that their is a chance that you may get busted, and yeah that sucks, but it's the law.

Sorry for the rant, but who snitches?

Found out some people on the 5th floor got busted last night, as well. Methinks it was a conspiracy.