Why Facebook Belongs to the College Crowd ONLY

While searching for the esteemed Zhang clan on Facebook, I encountered a rare species: someone over the age of 40. People you do NOT expect to find on Facebook:

Be a C student in Calc

Despite failing spectactularly on my first BC calc exam, I remain in a remarkable state of Zen-like calmness. Is it senior slide catching up to me? Lethargy and inertia seem the predominate state of my being.

After seeing a small (this is Noeth) red C- on my calc test, in addition to a scrawled note demanding "more study needed," I reacted with little emotion. Perhaps it is a profound state of denial, but I really don't seem to care. Or this there some Freudian defense mechanism (i.e. denial) pretending to me I don't care? There was also a supreme confidence that I would do much better on the next test, that I was capable of doing much better. Really, you think I would freak out more after getting the lowest math test grade of my life. This is from first grade onward and includes all those tedious hours of Kumon. Whatever the case, I cannot profess to be easily moved. I believe myself to be a rather sensitive person--hypersensitive in some cases--but I rarely, rarely cry.

Maybe it's just back-to-school blues, but I have been very spacey all week. I read the instructions on tests all wrong, skip questions on accident, am especially inarticulate, and generally seem to be operating in another dimension. I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space.

Senior, that's old!

I haven't updated in two weeks, which is especially dismal considering the start of school means I should have plenty to talk about. So without further ado, gossipy and judgmental thoughts on my senior year teachers. Compared against other years, they are definitely the best bunch (sophomore year was a real nadir saved only by Veley.)

Starr: Senior Sem seems like a typical slacking-off, sleep-through first period class. Hopefully, I won't sleep through the valuable life skills part. It can't be too hard to teach this class, and Starr seems capable enough if a bit old ladyish and boring. "Darling" and "Sweetie" seem to make up a large extent on her vocabulary.

Green: This class BLOWS my mind. Metaphorically, of course, or else I'd be running around without a head. I have always had history taught to me as a straight set of dates and facts, but Green teaches history with the skill of a master storyteller. Connections between the obscure and the esoteric seem not salacious tangents as in Steege, but threads in the larger tapestry of history. Corny? Only if you've never taken Euro.

McClung: I hated physics in 8th grade and approached this year's physics class with a large sense of dread. Why did I take this class, it might be some hazy thing called "peer pressure," but I certainly don't dread sitting in McClung's class. In Harry Potter terms, he's definitely Flitwick: short, energetic, and self-processed anal. And is there some rule that science teacher's kids have to be cute?

Leavitt: Leavitt is a brunette replica of Mme Laz in demeanor, voice, build, looks, haircut, fashion sense, and enthusiasm for French. Her class lacks the air of lethargy that permeated every other French class I have taken in high school. Here's to hoping I'll learn something this year.

Noeth: The legend, right? I have nothing to add. His class is a riot.

Crick: His class is also a riot, but perhaps not as intentionally. Only some massively insecure person would spend class intimidating 17-year-olds with phrases like "Agenbite of inwit," "sin non qua," "fait accompli" and other words of decidedly pedantic and non-English origins. No matter, I find it amusing for the time and spend the majority of time smirking behind my book. Besides, his no-BS attitude is at least refreshing after Anthony's total lapping up of suckage. Crick's guerilla Acadec recruitment tactics, on the other hand, kind of get on my nerves and make me feel icky, like being used. Mais, c'est un fait accompli. Can't be anything about it now.

The best benefit to being a senior is that our teachers really treat is like adults, and if not adults as least not children either. No more lectures on book-covering and reiterations of cellphone bans; these teachers cut right to the chase. What can I say? They know their shit.

Summer Reading Part 4: It's All About Politics

Fourth in a series to give the impression I did something intellectual this summer. Starred titles indicate books I particularly enjoyed.

Peter the Great
Robert Massie

The juggernaut. The behemoth. I have 15 pages in MS word to describe this book. I’m not touching it until September 10.

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*Absurdistan*
Gary Shteyngart

I have no idea what motivated me to pick up this book. The cover art is blandly abstract, the subject matter is not to my taste, and the main character is a filthy rich, obese, foul-mouthed, horny Russian Jew—totally someone I would identity with. It must be the title: Absurdistan, no other title could evoke so much political outrage, silliness, and pathos in one measly word.

Absurdistan is absurd—absurdly funny, bleakly funny—the type of hilarity that makes you laugh until your stomach hurts and then it punches you in the guts when you realize the situations are not funny at all, but very real and appalling. Shteyngart pulls off this audacious satire, ripping into everything from trophy wives to terrorism to obesity with a touch that turns the horrible into the hilarious. He even manages to satirize himself with his doppelganger Jerry Shteynfarb, who wrote The Russian Arriviste’s Hand Job, as opposed to Shteyngart’s first novel, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. Where Absurdistan strikes the hardest is American ignorance and greed. A reader will immediately draw parallels between Absurdistan and today’s current events, but Absurdistan cuts off on September 10, 2001. An ominous ending that portends maybe nothing has changed after all.

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*Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress*
Dai Sijie

Whenever I start complaining about school, my parents always launch into a rueful tirade on their education in then hands of the Cultural Revolution. And I can’t compare: however aimless English class may seem, it can never be as aimless as reciting Mao’s quotations for the 437th time. (Random: Did you know blogspot is still banned in China?) After reading this book, I had a nice conversation with my dad (not about college for once!), but about how people would wait hours in line to buy Balzac’s books after the Revolution.

Since the Cultural Revolution is one of the most universally reviled policies, a book critical of it can be nothing new (except in China’s official bookstores.) Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, translated from the French since Balzac was a French dude after all, reads like a fable rather than a social critique. Ma and Luo are sent to the countryside to be re-educated where they discover a chestful of the forbidden Western cannon and as the title promises, they also meet the Little Seamstress. There are grotesque images, but the pastoral setting brings to mind a hermetic alter-world. It’s a slim and tightly written novel, made more powerful by its compact construction. The finishing touch is an ironic, oblique criticism of the Cultural Revolution that almost twists the themes around. Makes me want to get off my butt (or maybe on, since I tend to sit while reading) and read Balzac.

I’m also really curious about the film adaptation of this book because it’s directed by Dai Sijie from his own novel. How often does that happen?

Redecorating, Chat Noir Style

This lovely poster is hanging above my bed. Well, it was hanging there until last night, when the forces of gravity pulled it down onto my head while I lay sleeping. Random objects falling on your head does not a pleasant wake-up make. Until I find some heavy duty poster tape or a stapler (preferably orange Swingline), this poster resides on my floor. Upside down. How disgraceful.

Especially since it is my one and only souvenir from Chicago. I bought it at the Art Institute of Chicago and carried it 40 minutes in the drenching rain to our car. Really, you'd think gravity would be more cooperative.

With the aid of Google and Wikipedia, I've been frantically trying to figure out what this poster is advertising. Apparently, it's some cabaret act. Considering it's in French, I'm not sure how salacious that's supposed to be.

I also got Photoshop installed semi-legally on my computer. So excited I was, I quickly went clone stamp happy and made a banner for Ze Blog.