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[Nov. 29th, 2006|10:54 pm] |
| [ | Spirits |
| |  accomplished | ] |
| [ | Voices |
| | Franz Ferdinand - All for You, Sophia | ] |
Damn.
I think World War I is my favourite class I've ever taken.
Tonight was the final class, sadly. Next week is the exam. So we wrapped everything up, talked about the Treaty of Versailles and the impact of the war and such, and I'm taking a step back and looking at my half-a-composition-book-ful of notes and all my handouts and everything we've done in what, only 9 weeks?
Crazy.
Best class ever, Joy? Really?
Yeah, I think so. For what I got out of it and everything overall, yeah.
That's not to say I was excited to go to class every week (I wasn't looking forward to going tonight at all, actually. I wanted to stay home.). There were some lectures too, that bored me to death. You can tell a lot about how interested I'm in a subject by the notes I take. For say, 75% of the classes in this course, there are pretty detailed notes organised well with minimal doodling. When you get to the night we talked about the naval war... I'm pretty sure that after about a page of notes I just stopped writing them period, and doodled or fell asleep for the rest of the time.
The class wasn't easy, either. Definitely not. There's a lot of concepts, and a lot of things to wrap your head around. It was challenging, but not discouragingly hard. Yeah, I worked for 5+ hours to finish a homework assignment, but how fulfilling did it feel once I got it done? How great did I feel to have it passed back and I got an A on it? Hard work paying off is always nice. (To contrast with my other two college classes: I worked pretty hard on my Sociology term paper and got a 75 on it. I didn't work hard at all on my Sign Language book report, and it wasn't really very good either, and I got a 100.)
Like I've said before, it helps that I like the topic. I'm not going to be taking Mr. Westheider's WWII class next quarter, because it would probably kill me. The teacher is absolutely awesome, but I just would not be motivated to do it.
The first time we ever went over WWI at school was in 9th grade. Gawd, Mrs. Napier was the worst. I don't entirely blame her, because if I had to teach freshman history all day for years on end I would probably be horrible to everyone too. But the next year, Spitzer was our teacher, and he was the best.
He put a big emphasis on the cause and effect of the war, and he motivated me to go and read All Quiet on the Western Front and he was just a young, hip and totally awesome teacher. He knew lots of random stuff and was just this big, fantastically huge nerd.
Anyway it's probably all Spitzer's fault that I like WWI.
Fantastic class. I'm so glad to have taken it. Very rewarding, and I learned a ton. And I've got two history books in my bag right now as a direct result of the class, that I'm now reading for pleasure.
Gaah, I'm turning into Faye! I shouldn't be reading history books! Hell, I shouldn't even be reading nonfiction! What's wrong with me? :P
~Joy's changed this past year, though probably not for the worse. |
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| "Peace" - by Eleanor Farjeon (or, proof I've been working on stuff for the past two days) |
[Nov. 15th, 2006|11:45 am] |
i.
I am as awful as my brother War,
I am the sudden silence after clamour.
I am the face that shows the seamy scar
When blood has lost its frenzy and its glamour.
Men in my pause shall know the cost at last
That is not to be paid in triumphs or tears,
Men will begin to judge the thing that's past
As men will judge it in a hundred years.
Nations! whose ravenous engines must be fed
Endlessly with the father and the son,
My naked light upon your darkness, dread! --
By which ye shall behold what ye have done:
Whereon, more like a vulture than a dove,
Ye set my seal in hatred, not in love.
ii.
Let no man call me good. I am not blest.
My single virtue is the end of crimes,
I only am the period of unrest,
The ceasing of the horrors of the times;
My good is but the negative of ill,
Such ill as bends the spirit with despair,
Such ill as makes the nations' soul stand still
And freeze to stone beneath its Gorgon glare.
Be blunt, and say that peace is but a state
Wherein the active soul is free to move,
And nations only show as mean or great
According to the spirit then they prove. --
O which of ye whose battle-cry is Hate
Will first in peace dare shout the name of Love? |
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| "He introduced himself as Count Somethingorother and seemed a very decent fellow." |
[Sep. 27th, 2006|10:24 pm] |
| [ | Spirits |
| |  sleepy | ] |
| [ | Voices |
| | The Decemberists - When The War Came | ] |
"I don't want to go to English, Joy!"
"Me neither!"
"Let's kill each other at the same time so we don't have to go."
"...no, thanks."
(that's a lot funnier if you know the girl who said it, Sammie. She's all bright and happy and a gymnast and really not the kind of person to make such a dark joke. I was surprised.)
Today was a half-day at school (we got out at 11), but as always it seemed just as long as a normal day and I didn't get a lot out of my extra 3 hours. I went to the bank with my dad and set up an account to cash my paychecks into (I got my first on Friday, huzzah! But I need to save most of it, for Costa Rica et al.). Then I took a nap. I also had to taxi Paula around a lot today, which is just starting to get on my nerves.
The WWI class continues to be awesome. It's a little tedious when we're going over each individual battle, but for the most part I'm completely interested.
We also talked about the Christmas truce today. :]
Also, the teacher compared France's Plan 17 to the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space. XD
Sociology yesterday was kind of annoying. UC Clermont is a community college, which means they let anyone in who wants in and there are a wide variety of students, from high school age to regular college kids to middle-aged parents continuing their education. I'm completely fine with that, and it's kind of cool at times getting different perspectives and whatever.
In the Soc class, there's a lot of group work. Aaaand in my group, this one woman is so. aggravatingly. stupid.
We had to go around the building, finding faculty office doors and analyzing them... but that's not important. What is important is this woman spent the whole time out there complaining and apologising and making excuses for herself about how she hasn't been to school in 15 years, she doesn't have money for her books yet, and she's bad at spelling. She didn't do any of the work for the assignment. I guess she tried, somewhat, but...
Say there's a poster on the door. On a math professor's door, there's a poster for the TV show Numb3rs, saying something about how we use math every day. There's a Paramount Pictures logo on the poster. We're discussing how this relates to him being a math teacher and all, and we look to her for any input she might have. She sits there for a moment and then points to the logo. "Paramount," she says.
...yeah. It was irritating.
Um... happier note!
Actually, random note segueing into a happier note: Today in the hallway of WeCIPA, which is the performing arts part of the school that Paula's in and the people there are creepy and scare me sometimes, there was a group of girls standing by their lockers singing La Vie Boheme from Rent. So random.
WHICH REMINDS ME. (See? It's a transition.)
Paula and her thespians group are going to see Rent, and since they're not allowed to make it an official school trip because of the subject matter and whatever, people outside of thespians are allowed to go and that means me!
So who was it around here who's a Rent fan? Lupie I think? :3 Bwah!
I work for 8 hours on Saturday... 9 on Sunday... I hope I can survive the weekend.
This week is going by quickly. I wish it weren't.
~Joy does not have enough time. |
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| As imperceptibly as grief the summer lapsed away... |
[Sep. 20th, 2006|10:33 pm] |
| [ | Spirits |
| |  pleased | ] |
| [ | Voices |
| | Franz Ferdinand - All for You, Sophia | ] |
It's going to be some work, but I think I'm going to enjoy this. :)
The teacher (professor, rather?) seems pretty cool. I came in late (THERE WERE NO PARKING SPOTS ARRGH, and I had to get all my textbooks) but he didn't care, he's one of the teachers that doesn't take attendance and doesn't care so long as you show up for tests. He looks like Penn Jilette and acts like my 6th grade history teacher. The lecture was interesting and he made a lot of jokes too. I must've taken 6 or 7 pages of notes, front-and-back. (If you saw my AP US History notes from last year, you'd be as amazed as I am at that.)
On grammar:
"To, too, two and 2. Believe me folks, it doesn't add up to 8."
"They drove through Sarajevo in an open-top car. Didn't they learn anything from Kennedy? Wait..."
All in all, it was a good class. I daresay it was...fun? At any rate I'm learning tons.
Tomorrow is Sociology and ASL. I'm flipping through my ASL textbook already... :3
On an unrelated note, it is chilly! Really pretty cold this morning and this evening. Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of transitional season between summer and winter, when all the leaves start to fall to the ground? The name escapes me, but I'm sure I remember something like that...
~Joy likes it too cold better than too warm anyway. |
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[Jun. 13th, 2006|09:50 am] |
| [ | Spirits |
| |  geeky | ] |
| [ | Voices |
| | Erik Satie - Gnossienne No. 3 | ] |
Hey guess what guys
Erik Satie is in Moulin Rouge and I totally never noticed.
Toulouse + Satie = yay! |
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| Da comrade! |
[May. 18th, 2006|01:50 am] |
| [ | Voices |
| | Jake Speed and the Freddies - The Twizzler Song | ] |
Methinks I am addicted to post-it notes, as well as clutter.
Between the notes in Korean, the paper cranes, the long expired to-do lists, empty pads and other miscellaneous papers on my desk, how am I ever to find that list of comics I write up every month? Or distinguish between one month and the next? Aheh.
A-hah! Here it is.
I should also probably finish up reading the books I bought from last month, but whatev.
Went canoeing today. It was really fun; we didn't tip over; my hands kind of hurt now. I slipped getting out of the boat, and will have to endure "What did you do to your lip?" over and over for the next week. I'm thinking of making something up.
The end of the year means tying up all the lose ends, of which there are many. These next couple of weeks are going to be stressful.
Choir concert went well, considering. But four run-throughs of all our songs left me hoarse this morning.
We had a communist party tonight. I was Lenin.
[00:18] * KarlMarx is now known as Lenin
[00:18] [MaoTseTung] Tung, tung! Mao Tse Tung! TseTungTse!
[00:18] [Stalin] Lenin!
[00:18] [Lenin] How's that?
[00:18] [Lenin] Stalin!
[00:18] [Stalin] Come help me kill this Capitalist Pig!
[00:18] * Noser is now known as FutureTeddyRoosevelt
[00:18] [Lenin] What's crackin' man?
[00:18] [Lenin] 'kay!
[00:20] * Freakazoid kicks Lenin.
[00:20] * Stalin shoots Freakazoid.
[00:20] [Lenin] Yay!
[00:20] [Lenin] Thanks Joe!
[00:20] * Freakazoid throws Andrew Jackson at Stalin.
[00:21] [AndrewJackson] ....
[00:21] [Stalin] Anytime, Vladdy!
And that's the way it is, May 17 2006. |
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[May. 7th, 2006|10:05 pm] |
HAHAHA Fayetje look!
I think I might have found this before but it bears re-posting.
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| Je veux comprendre..! |
[Apr. 13th, 2006|02:36 pm] |
| [ | Spirits |
| |  awake | ] |
| [ | Voices |
| | Franz Liszt - Danse Macabre | ] |
Great article:
Shakespeare is like sex.
I watched A Very Long Engagement a few nights ago - I got it for my birthday. :] Allow me to summarize it in a nutsell: A French independent film, from the director of Amélie and featuring many of the same actors (including Audrey Tautou), set during WWI, as both a love story and a mystery.
How could I not love it?
For the French students in the audience, a cute pun: The young lovers in our story are Mathilde and Manech. Wherever they go, they write or carve 'MMM': Mathilde aime Manech. Manech aime Mathilde. Aww.
Highly, highly recommended. I ought to keep my eyes open for the novel.
~Joy should read All Quiet on the Western Front again, or something. |
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| Let 'em talk about hard cider (cider, cider!), and log cabins too |
[Jan. 2nd, 2006|06:12 pm] |
| [ | Spirits |
| |  depressed | ] |
| [ | Voices |
| | They Might Be Giants - Tippecanoe and Tyler Too | ] |
I'm sorry, History. Right at the moment, I feel like abandoning you.
Yes I know it's entirely my fault, having whiled away the entire break paying no heed at all to my work, but my brain is blown. And there has to be some underlying reason I've been working so much less this year than last, doesn't there?
This year's history curriculum is complete and utter tedium. We're doing everything we did last year plus more, trying to squeeze it into a single year and leaving out all the detail that makes it interesting.
Last year. Last year was great. We had Spitzer. The young teachers are always less qualified and never get praise from people that matter but the students always like them best. They like to try new things more, and they like to do more "fun" things. In Spitzer's class we watched movies, we did activities, we did projects which while I was doing them I complained about but I realise now that it's still a lot better than this.
This year it's exactly by the book, literally. Each week a new chapter. Each week we do the key terms and multiple choice supplied by the book and write one of the essay prompts supplied by the book. Each week we get two to three days of lecture, which is exactly like the book chapter we've already read. And I've stopped caring.
This could of course all be a cover-up for my embarassment at the fact that I really don't know all this stuff, despite having done it all the years before, and I've a terrible head for names and a worse head for dates when we start something and drop it at the end of the week and the people don't really stand out at all, and I wish I had heard this song when we were doing that time period; it was only late by a week or two but by that time it was of no use to us anyway.
It's not fun anymore, I don't get paid, any possible incentive at this point is much more delayed than the instant gratification of making friends and learning languages and enriching my life in ways I see better fit.
~Joy would complain before, but she'd always get the work done and do fine, until this year, and it worries her more than she'd like to let on. |
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| Frohe Weihnachten |
[Dec. 22nd, 2005|06:39 pm] |
| [ | Spirits |
| |  thoughtful | ] |
Because it's that time of year again, and I love this story...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce
Christmas 1914, Belgium.
For once, the most interesting things of the war aren't the weapons, or the strategies, or the battles, or the bodycounts - they're the people. The human beings.
For a short while, man and man come together. Sing together. Give gifts and play games. They share a holiday together.
And then, a day later, a few days later, perhaps a week later - they return to the trenches with their weapons. They return to war. They go back to killing the people they were just becoming friends with.
It's an incredible and perplexing event. Merry Christmas. |
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