Blog Announcement

Dear All,

I have a new blog. I plan on keeping Aw eff as a more private blog for friends and I plan on updating it when I have things to say that I don't want to share with the world for whatever reason. My new blog "Anthem for a Doomed Twinkie" will focus mostly on religion, education and my "church surfing" (where I visit different Christian services for fun).

You may notice, however, that on my new blog I post under the name "Lee" (I wanted a name, like Sam, that was basically unisex but that was still somehow connected to me--middle name Leanne --> Lee)
And also I'm trying to avoid serious identifying details such as specific locations or names. Feel free to come check out the new blog and comment if you want, but just be aware! :-)

http://doomedtwinkie.blogspot.com/

Hearts,
Sam

Honk honk, Time Lord Mothers

I think my mom would be the worst possible Time Lord. Well, of course, cos she's a woman. But she'd also make a pretty shitty Time Lady. She's the sort of person who, seconds after an irrevocable decision X has been made and executed, immediately wonders aloud, "Damn it, maybe we should have done decision Y..." Had Julius Caesar been in the company of my mom when he crossed the Rubicon, she would have followed this un-undoable breach of the boundaries of Rome by its own soldiers on active duty with the words, "Damn it, we shouldn't have crossed the Rubicon." My point is that if this woman were a Time Lady and therefore able to harness the awesome time-traveling abilities of a TARDIS...the world would be a terrifying place. Mostly because we'd be stuck in one moment for all of eternity. Time would cease to progress, one moment would repeat itself over and over again, until finally G-d would be like, "Shit, this is boring" and then end the universe. I mean, that's how I imagine the end of the universe: G-d just gets bored and turns it off.

What I mean is that, if this woman had a TARDIS, she would make one decision and then immediately regret it and then go back and change the situation. I don't know which decision specifically...does it really matter? It could be something as stupid as "Damn it, I shouldn't have eaten that fry," or something more serious like, "Damn it, I should have sent you kids to public school." But then she'd go back in her TARDIS and change the situation...but then immediately afterward decide that she should have changed the situation in a different way. So she'll go back and change it again. And so on and so on for hundreds of years and hundreds of regenerations, going back to the same moment. The universe would never progress! Gaaaaaaa!!!!!

Anyway...

Today I was driving around LA and I was in the right lane stopped at a red light. I decided to keep going straight and not to turn right, but since this was NOT a right turn only lane it wasn't a big deal. Or so I thought. Next thing I know I hear a horn behind me angrily honking, so I turn around and:



Holy shit! Emperor Palpatine is in the car behind me! And he's making angry gestures at me! Apparently he has an urgent meeting on the Death Star with Darth Vader, and he's pissed that he can't make a turn on this red light because the person in front of him (who obviously must be part of the Rebel Alliance) has to wait for a green light to move.

But then I realize...wait a minute. This isn't Emperor Palpatine. He isn't on his way to an important budgetary meeting with Darth Vader followed by luncheon with Grand Moff Tarkin. It's just a really old man. Who apparently is furious with me for doing something totally legal. I stare at him in my mirror, this guy who looks so old that his skin is practically falling off his face like cake batter dripping off a spoon, and he just keeps making angry gestures--not frantic or panicked gestures, but rather gestures that convey the idea that he can't believe what a total bitch I am for not running this red light.

I have to wonder what the rush is all about. Does the Crypt Keeper have a day job that he was rushing to? No, this guy has probably been retired since the early 1950's, the last time he had to clock in at work his coworkers were wearing "I like Ike" pins, there's no fucking way he was on his way to work. Perhaps he was late for his appointment with Death. Dunno.

Anyway. That's just what happened today. Oh yeah...well, there was that part where the light turned green, and I rolled down my window, stuck my head out and turned around. Then I gave him a backwards V-sign and yelled in the midst of LA traffic, "Fuck you, Palpatine!" and drove off singing the Star Wars theme.

Sometimes I love road rage.

Sam's Theory of Canada.

I have a Theory of Canada: Canada does not actually exist. Well, at least not in THIS dimension. The way I see it, when we cross into (British) Canada from the US we are actually stepping into a parallel dimension or universe, however you want to call it. Canada is actually the United States in a different dimension, a dimension in which someone time traveled and stepped on a butterfly, thus changing the world in a minute yet tangible way. And sure, stepping on this butterfly didn't change history so drastically that now we all speak German or fly the Stars and Bars, but it did give us free health care, hockey and a few misspelled words.

Why am I picking on Canada? Because all of the other nations of the world are so vastly different--I include even England in that statement. But Canada? No, it seems to be too much like us to actually be an entirely different nation. As an American, walking around Canada everything feels extremely similar, entirely familiar, but with unsettling subtle differences. Therefore it must be a parallel dimension.

Then again, somewhere in Canada a 22 year old is writing that the United States is actually just Canada in a parallel universe.

All British People Are Geniuses.

.

So there's a British guy in my British history class. I wish I could say that after a decade of obsessing over British TV, music and culture that I'd be immune to it, but I have to admit that everything that comes out of this guy's mouth seems like a brilliant idea. I mean, objectively speaking I know that the ideas coming out of his mouth are average, maybe good at best, but this doesn't seem to stop me and everyone else in the class (including the professor) from hanging on his every word. We girls are especially vulnerable to the Brit's unintentional charms, as on more than one occasion his contributions in class have been interrupted by a swooning sigh. Frankly, if this were still the era of corsets I think half of the class would be on the floor after a British-induced fainting spell.

I wonder if other English speaking countries (apart from the UK obviously) have this problem. Are Canadians as intrigued by British accents as we Americans are? Do South Africans think people with English accents are inherently smarter and better looking? I wish I could say we were discerning connoisseurs of British English, that the bonus in the perception of intelligence only applies to the Queen's English, but quite honestly I'm pretty sure we're drawn in even by Dick Van Dyke's rape of Cockney. Were we Americans to meet the real Bert I'm sure we'd think that, in spite of his filth-covered face, he's a brilliant looker.

For all I know my classmate is considered borderline retarded in his native England, and English women find him physically repulsive, but here in Illinois with his charming inability to correctly pronounce the letter "R," this guy is an Adonis who is one comment in British history class away from being nominated for a Nobel Prize. A Nobel Prize in what specifically, I'm not sure, but we Americans would find a way to create a category specially for this dude.

Now before anyone thinks I'm some sort of pervert, just know that I've had conversations about this with other girls in the class, and they've noticed it, too. One girl even admitted to spending most of class trying to compose English-flavored pickup lines to use on our classmate who is of the British persuasion...something about buttering crumpets. So there. Clearly there's at least one girl in class who is infinitely creepier than I am.

What I really find fascinating about this guy though is the fact that he seems completely bewildered. Much like someone who grew up in poverty only to win the lottery, it seems to me that he grew up in English schools, believing his was mediocre in both brains and looks, only to come to America and find that--for some reason completely beyond the scope of his English understanding--EVERYONE seems suddenly to be obsessed with his thoughts, opinions, and comments. The look in his eyes reminds me of the moment in Harry Potter when Harry finally learns that he's not a lame, scrawny kid with glasses, but rather a friggin' WIZARD. And I bet my classmate silently swears to himself that no one in England must ever know about the jackpot that is America, because an influx of Englishmen might diminish his new-found powers.

To be honest, I'm afraid the exact opposite is going to happen when (if) I go to England. Sort of like what being in Israel was like, except at least in Israel I had the language barrier to hide behind. But I mean, if we think the English sound intelligent, then that must mean they think we're idiots. Here in Illinois when I talk I seem reasonably intelligent, but next year in grad school in England (assuming I get in somewhere), when I share my opinion in my native American accent, will my classmates silently imagine a barefooted yokel playing a banjo?



On an rational level, surely they'll know I'm from the big, hippie city of Los Angeles, but I'm not so sure that'll stop them from imagining the song "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival" whenever I talk. Granted, they probably don't even know that song. Oh Jesus, why do I know that song?

One reassuring thing about watching Doctor Who?

The possibility of alien invasions is no longer scary. No matter what, nothing could possibly be more fucked up than some of the things I've seen on that show.

Being a teacher

So I'm in the process of applying for teacher training programs. No big deal. The nice thing about my university though is that many professors force students to teach class once per quarter, so I'm at least sort of prepared. Until today I'd only done this for French classes, and I gotta say that I don't remember too well how they went. In French you're too busy trying to remember which word you need and in which tense/mood/person or whatever, and trying desperately not to accidentally say something inappropriate,* so you don't have a lot of energy left to pay attention to the daydreaming, doodling, and facebooking sitting before you.

*Example of something inappropriate: Today in Hebrew class a girl said "to fuck" instead of "to identify with." Apparently I was the only kid in class who knew how to say "to fuck" because I was the only person who laughed.

Anyway, all of this changed today when I had to be the teacher for the Religion Seminar. It actually wasn't too much work. Basically I just had to come up with a couple of questions, ask the class, and then WHOA off they go, debating with each other. For the most part I hate that class because many members of the class seem to think that even choirs of angels in heaven could not compare to the beauty that is their voice. There's one student in particular who's just so arrogant, pretentious and greedy with class time that I sometimes wonder whether or not his presence in my life is the karmic result of a murder-rape I committed in a previous life. The worst part of having people like this is that you assume that the teacher probably likes them, that they must get great grades. But that was until today, when I faced the class....and realized that this guy somehow manages to be even more grating when viewed from the teacher's perspective.

Someone asked a pretty inoffensive question about Emil Durkheim's definition of religion to hear the class's thoughts. You know, it's the sort of thing where you can passionately be like, "Oh, I disagree with Durkheim's interpretation and here's why," but it's hardly the Holocaust. But this boy, draped in a large shawl with swirly patterns with the same feminine drama of a 60's film star, this asshole rolls his eyes with such overwhelming surliness and disgust that I could have sworn he was having some kind of epileptic fit.

"Call an ambulance," I wanted to cry out, "Axe-Chin is having a stroke!" (I call him Axe-Chin because he has such a strong cleft in his chin that it looks like someone took an axe to his face...which is actually what I sometimes imagine doing after two and a half hours of class in which he can't figure out how to shut the fuck up.)

Anyway....it was an interesting experience. Apart from trying to politely beat Axe-Chin into submission so that shier members of class could share their thoughts, I didn't really do much besides watch people as they either paid attention, or daydreamed (and I sort of daydreamed about what they were daydreaming about), or doodled. It was kind of surreal, thinking that hopefully I'll be doing something like this a lot more in the future. Except unlike my profs here, I hope that I'll have the balls to say, "Shut the fuck up so that someone else can share what they think, you greedy bastard." How more professors don't throttle their students is just beyond me...

Glossary

I've decided I need to form a glossary of Sam-isms. I'll update as I remember more. That way I don't have to explain every time I use one:

Akimba: a state of bra-lessness. Verb: to go akimba.

A Fat Elvis Weekend (sometimes referred to as "A Lost Weekend"): a weekend in which you feel so pathetic and awful that you confine yourself to your room, sometimes with a bunch of movies, and you have yourself a nice long cry.

to Hulk out: to suddenly burst from your clothing, à la The Incredible Hulk. Unlike the Hulk, this can be intentional or unintentional.


Fart Pocket:: a random spot that smells of fart that is contained. Meaning, you can pass through a fart pocket and you can clearly differentiate where it begins and ends, unlike with a real fart. Fart Pockets are native to Evanston and the greater Chicagoland area.