My paper is actually going smoothly. This was unexpected. Once I got the conceit hammered out, everything just sort of fell into place. Now I just have to focus on production, which is bad times, because my car is out of commission for a few days, so I can't go off-campus to get supplies. I might have to cut it a little close to the wire, but I should still finish a few days ahead of time. I don't want to leave any room for error.

The reason I didn't turn in a rough draft isn't because I'm a pretentious jerk whose art shouldn't be viewed until it's finished because it would ruin the creative process. It's because I want it to be a surprise and for Spencer to be like, "What the fuck is going on" as he looks at my project. But I think it will work well. And it's the kind of thing that requires a sort of constant editing, beyond what a single "rough draft" would put me at.

I bought beer for the first time last Friday. It was pretty anti-climactic. Now, there are no birthdays to look forward to. I guess 35. At 35, I can be president. Or is that 40?

It's almost all over. Two more weeks, then finals. I don't really count finals. I always make a big show of how I'm going to study for finals and get straight A's and learn German and train for the Olympics, but then I just watch television. So, two more weeks.

I was up until 4:30 last night, writing a paper about Dracula. Bad times. I'm mildly pissed because A) I'm still tired and B) I wasn't able to start on this project, like I planned. I'm also having difficulties figuring out how the rough draft is going to work, specifically how I'm going to do it without spoiling the effect of the final version.

I stress out a little, then I just watch this 20-second clip from Flight of the Conchords.

Spencer said I need to talk more about the class, specifically the final project and how that's going.

I've got an idea I really want to do. The problem is, it has absolutely no focus yet. I really just want to replace all the text in a single chapter of Watchmen, and turn it into an essay. I don't know what I'm going to write about, though. It has to be about comic books. I don't have anything to say about comic books, without really feeling like I'm over-Englishing it. Using words like paradigm and heteronormativity and stuff. I don't know. My copy of Watchmen is with a friend, and hopefully he'll bring it to Victorian culture tomorrow. If he doesn't? Mexico is less than a day away, if I break the speed limit.

The thing is, I know I could make something that would be entertaining, and maybe even smart, if I didn't feel like I was stretching to talk about "paneling" or something. So my focus when I sit down to really hammer this out is going to be finding a compromise between what's fun and instructive for me and what's academic enough for the department. Which I guess is what's been happening since Kindergarten.

arrrgh

I found out today that in order to take an instructional music course with the university, you have to audition. Isn't that the point? I've been playing guitar for seven years, but I'm pretty bad and sound like I've only been playing for ten months. That's why I want instruction, so I can stop playing the same Alkaline Trio and White Stripes songs over and over and over again.

It's kind of sad how U of I lacks viable electives. I took Horticulture 106, "Home Horticulture", this semester, because the course description said that it was a survey class for non-majors who want to learn about decorating with plants and growing their own vegetables. It sounded informative and interesting. What do I get? I get some guy who doesn't care about the course literally reading every word off of every slide for an hour and twenty minutes, with little worthwhile explication that can't be reasonably inferred. He said, "You want to make sure you mow your grass. Grass grows," today. There are between 8-10 pages of single-spaced notes every day (we can print them off, thank God) and any banal piece of minutiae is up for grabs on any one of the fifty-question exams. One of the questions was "what makes sausage spicy," which the instructor tossed in as an afterthought during one lecture, and I only remembered because I knew the answer previously. It's fennel, in case you were wondering.

Then, and here's the kicker, there are the random quizzes. Six quizzes throughout the semester, during random lectures. You're allowed to miss one, since your lowest grade gets dropped. So I dick around for a couple weeks and attend maybe only half the lectures. I miss class the first quiz day. Big deal, I say. There's no way they'll have two quizzes back-to-back, right? So I skip the next class, AND THERE'S A FUCKING QUIZ! THEY PUT TWO OUT OF SIX QUIZZES THE ENTIRE SEMESTER IN TWO BACK-TO-BACK LECTURES! What is this chickenshit? Is that really necessary? Is that checking my understanding? What the fuck is the purpose of instruction if all we care about is grading whether or not we show up? I'm so sick of this system that defines part of your grade on attendance. Let me fucking sit in my apartment, watch a three-hour marathon of To Catch a Predator, eat a bowl of popcorn and then go to bed! Don't force me to come to fucking class! I don't need to! I can read a fucking book! If all you're going to do is read the book to me, is it really necessary that I'm there?!

Even when I get A's, it's like it doesn't matter anymore. I got an A, hooray. My life is exactly the same as when I woke up this morning. I got a D, oh no. My life is exactly the same as when I woke up this morning.

Don't take horticulture.

Reading that back over, I sound kind of angry. I probably was, but it's all dissipated now and I just want to go to bed. Here's something funny to break the tension.