scantron sanity and misplaced quasi-political rants

I dreamed last night, or rather this morning sometime between 4:15 this morning when I woke up to use the bathroom and 6:35 when alarms started going off, that I was late to class. And this isn’t the first time that I’ve had this dream in the almost 2 years since I graduated from college. Oh, no. I have this dream a lot. And I think it’s pretty weird.

Well, I don’t think that it is ‘weird’ as in unusual, because I know plenty of ex-classmates who also experience this dream on a regular basis. I think that our brains were simply wired for so long to anticipate class-related stresses that when we don’t get that stimulus in the form of a sassy blue-and-white scantron form our brains get a little wonky. But when it comes to my specific dream, I tend to think that it’s a little weird.

First, I don’t like to think of myself as someone whose life stopped when I stopped being able to ride the campus buses for free. In fact, I’m starting to think that people put altogether too much emphasis on college, as both a requirement for future successes and as a transcendental epoch of total personal awesomeness. Obviously I think that going to college is a worthwhile educational experience and a must-have if you love school for the very schoolness of it, like I do. And a degree is, undoubtedly, something that you have for life. But it also sets you up for unrealistic expectations ($$$) and completely fails to set you up (in the liberal arts, particularly) for the harsh unfriendliness of a market flooded with young folks who can do a close-reading of Chaucer but are best suited for answering telephones and making schnazzy spreadsheets.

Don’t get me wrong. College = good. I might even go back to school. But especially with the fee increases (32% this year at my old stomping grounds) I think that it is becoming a very hard thing to justify without insuring a 32% increase in class availability, relevance, and (let’s face it) making it about 32% more challenging to get a B.A.. If it was me, I would want my money’s worth and in the case of college that means 32% more knowledge and 32% less sleep during finals. Somehow, especially in the candy-coated UC system, I don’t see that happening.

It may sound a little materialistic (yipes!) to note, but as the only member of my family with a B.A. I make far-and-away the least amount of money. And I don’t mean since I quit my corporate job; they made more than me when I was pushing paper all about.

Money isn’t the only measure of worth and it sure isn’t the best one, but I think that the UC system would do well to shift a little of the focus away from soul-bending experiences and educational enlightenment via sun-dappled Frisbee games and towards the real financial situation. For one thing, they are inflating the students’ ideas of how quickly they can pay off their loans and credit cards as easily as they are inflating the fees.

So, enough ranting brought on by watching footage of the student protests here in sunny California. My dream went like this: I was late for a class where I had to turn in a paper and my bike had two flat tires. While I was trying to borrow someone’s bike I realized that I hadn’t attended this class once all quarter (this is a common theme in these dreams) and I began to berate myself for my negligence. I finally took off running toward the building where I somehow knew that the class would be meeting, leaving my bike hidden behind a tree. Before I got there, I woke up in a mild panic.

I know that I could push it here, make some reference to dreams of the literal sense and the quickly evaporating possibility of the lower-middle class to achieve collegiate dreams, but I won’t. That would be way too liberal arts-ish.

Pack ratting

Today’s blog should be about hugging and the trials of hugging your extended family, because my own mother took the trouble to g-mail chat me about writing a “story about how you do the bob-and-weave when people try to hug you.” Everyone knows that I love shit-talking about family functions; however, it is with a heavy heart that I report that this blog post shall not be about hugging. When I started to think it out it sounded a little too much like a Seinfeld episode. And if I’m going to be sounding like any TV show from the late-90s it’s going to be News Radio, ya dig?

So, I’m going on a trip at the end of next week to an undisclosed location for an undisclosed amount of time. But it occurred to me as I was driving home that no matter how much I enjoy a vacation, there is something extremely fun about thinking about going on a trip. And I don’t mean the count-down crap that the girl in the cubicle next to you is practicing. No, I mean the hardcore thinking, like thinking about what you are going to pack and whether you have mini-sized toiletries. I wondered as I drove whether I would need to do laundry or go to the bank, and my brief outing is still a week away. I considered what to leave my domestic-person to eat and what book to bring for the plane. That sort of domestic planning really floats my boat.

But I think that I have mentioned on this blog before how I love packing. Putting everything that you imagine that you will need into a bag is very soothing for me. I like placing things carefully, knowing full-well that they will shift around and that I will end up stuffing dirty clothes in on top of them while away. Looking into a well-organized bag (you know, clothing folded, pajamas on top, toiletry bag tucked into a corner of the bag, extra sneaks set neatly at the never bottom of the bag) is like looking into a well-organized mind. I figure if I can’t have one, I might as well have the other.

This space pod seats four.

I’m going to preface this entry by warning you (yes, you, oh boundless internet) that it might seem at first like I’m going somewhere meaningful and sentimental with all of this nonsense. I assure you, without the smallest shadow of a doubt, that I am not.

Somewhat deep people are always jawing on trying to define all manner of loaded, biblical-type words. Specifically I’m thinking of such arbitrary concepts as “right” and “wrong” or (to their friends) “good” or “evil.”

Lately I have been assaulted repeatedly with these terms over the pressing issue of wedding-reception-invitee-etiquette. [I feel by just typing that phrase my blog is going to get twice the hits. Internet fiends watching bootlegged anime are nothing compared to the sheer googling prowess of the prospective bridal class.]

Certain members of my family, being left nameless out of gaping obviousness, seem to feel that the rules of wedding attendance are so fundamental that they are completely warranted in using the cliché (and yet, so effective) guilting phrase: “Do the right thing.”

And to this I apply a basic theorem. There is nothing so serious in the implications of inviting to people to eat cake on your dime to provoke such severe language. I’m not perfecting the guest-list for the last space pod leaving earth as a fiery-hot comet draws increasingly near.

In my perception there are good things in the world (the BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small being available to stream online) and also bad (attentive salespeople).

So unless it’s about the crack-fiends at the mall, the BBC or the aforementioned space pod, I don’t want particularly wish to be saddled with the fate of personal morality.

Real quick realization

Some days I am somewhat intelligent and certain Americanisms just make sense. For instance, I generally roll my eyes whenever I hear someone compare something really nifty to sliced bread, but today I abruptly realized that yes, sliced bread is totally bitchin'.

The genius is right in the name: sliced.

Pita bread? Impossible to cut, and ergo, leakage of pita juices onto a person's favorite zippy. English muffin? Forget about cutting that with enough precision to ensure even toasting.

And since sandwiches are the most exulted of all bread-related meals and require two sections of similarly sized bread to accomplish sucessfully, I'd have to say that sliced bread is in fact, the best thing.

Ode to biking; Short tirade on bikers.

Today when I was biking in the wind beside a field of threshed hay, I was trying to have "amber waves of grain" type thoughts. I was trying to direct my imagination at the world before the hay bale and to consider narratives about little prairie runts sliding down hay stacks like they were pre-industrial Six Flags (but without the weird Looney Tunes affiliation). Perhaps I could even have been contented with some Willa Cather-ish notions with plows [read: hard working men] silhouetted against the setting sun [read: death of the Mid-Western farming community] or the young widows of Civil War veterans selling their beauteous meadows to support their frivolous life style [read: oh, Willa Cather]. But try as I might, I just kept thinking: That is some ugly burnt grass, and biking in the wind is unfathomably annoying.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love riding my bike. I consider the rediscovery of the bike as one of the most valuable lessons I've learned here at my venue of higher education. Being the sort of person who hates driving and fears the bus [I once sat down in the seat kept symbolically vacant for the ghost of Rosa Parks on Rosa Parks Day and got told off by the bus driver] biking is a preferable alternative. I'm currently cruising on a teal-with-purple flecks Huffy road bike with dysfunctional gears but very nice tires and generally have a pleasant time wheeling about...when it is not windy.

As much as I like biking, however, I can't seem to get over my distaste for bikers. You know, the sort of people with more than one helmet (matchy, matchy), a spare tire attached to their backpack and are always yelling things like "On your right!"

What, pray tell, is a normal person supposed to respond to "On your right!"?

Because I am a polite person, I feel that some response is required. Unfortunately, because I am a both a polite and a nervous person, I can't think on the fly. So, I usually end up tentatively saying "okay...thanks" long after the fiercely peddling helmeteer has glided past. As I duck my head and peddle sluggishly on in shame, I console myself that my awkward response probably rolled right off of their sleek spandex torso, unheard.

So today in the wind along the field of hella burnt threshed grass, I thought about how people fall into threshers and get all ground to bits and when some chick in a camouflage sandals gave me the "On your right!" I just gave her a knowing glance.