Wit & Whim

It is funny, I have started in this blog post on three separate days and each time I have allowed myself to be distracted, though I must qualify that the distractions were very pleasant. Anyway, I have started into the works of H.P. Lovecraft and I am very much enjoying them. He has a talent for using the English language in the fullness of its richly adorned accuracy. He also has a dismal worldview and a knack for creating believably obsessive or evil characters. In fiction, there are few topics more fascinating than human distortion, primarily of the mind. Lovecraft uses the sometimes doubtful state of the protagonists sanity to lend a degree of ambiguity to the events. Are the nightmares surrounding him actually there? Or are they just his nightmares? On top of that, the protagonist telling the story is almost never entirely sound. Herbert West: Re-animator is a good example of how doubt can be thrown on the veracity of the whole story by a single paragraph at the end. Now that I ha...

Just finished a German Exam. Proctor was Herr. Roberts and I really miss that man. The class is split 50/50 on those who prefer Roberts or Schulz. I am for Roberts, his technique was better for me. Oh well, Frau Schulz is, at the very least, decent and fairly amusing...I also miss Herr Roberts merciful grading. ;-p I'm trying to get into a paper on either Aristotle of Plato. I have made brief inroads into both possibilities and find the same problem in both cases. When I am talking about Plato I want to use material from my dear friend, Aristotle, and also vice versa. Aristotle would be easier, but Plato would earn me much greater kudos. I will have to consider it tonight as I walk the winding ways of highway 17. More frustrating than my beautifully pertinent and meaningful POLSY paper, is my newest com assignment. A self analysis paper. Do all of these gen ed classes require one of these? Am I going to have to do a self analysis paper when I take a math class? "The Number One...

There is a major downside to the easy convenience of doing almost all schoolwork on the computer. This downside hit me fast, largely owing to computer use in the dark after being out in the bright sun. The downside is bloodshot eyes, and it is for that reason that I am keeping this brief. I have papers to write and need to save my eyes, but I hate letting the blog go dormant.

Propaganda is, by necessity, a lie. A distortion of the truth to shape beliefs and change actions. This CPI piece is an example. A nameless menace rises out of a desolate waste of poison and dust. The rising spike of his Pickelhaube is the mark which names the menace. His hands are stained with blood. A terrified woman shields her babe with her own body. A grim picture. How about the truth of this picture, as seen through my eyes. His name is Otto. He is, or was, a farmboy, from a little village forty miles outside cologne, where his family has lived since before they kept written records. Otto is seventeen. He joined to protect his homeland against foreign powers who have Germany hemmed in on both sides. He has been fighting for a year. He used to cry himself to sleep every night, but it has been months since he was last able to cry. His best friend died in his arms, but the tears wouldn't come. And now it is his time. The battle has passed on, but it does so without Otto. He has ...

Why is it that I always do better with my verbal answers in German than I do with the written ones. I write it down, but if I stop to speak it aloud, only then do I realize that it sounds funny. This is hurting in the little tests that we have every now and then. The second I am alone I start writing English in German; that is to say, English thought pattern. The answer is easy enough, I just need to think like a German...lovely. Thinking of German. I have been trying to find an exact figure on the number of people who spoke German prior to WWI. I have found unreliable estimates as high as the mid-40% range, but I am trying to find something a little more concrete. What bugs me is that I know I have seen reliable numbers in past readings, I just can't remember where they were. *Making observations on Hunnic genetics and the power of filial piety to stay the angry tongue* Tomorrow I just have to worry about my first history exam, but I really feel very good about it. I was able to r...

When you wake up in the dark--again--it does not do much for the readiness of the already thoroughly mortified flesh. Odd though the thought may be, sometimes that coffee just isn't enough. At times like these, when I feel sorry for myself, I remind myself that I could be a math major. And the daisies do burst forth. Thankfully, today was a short day at school, largely because my com prof and her first born are still afflicted with influenza. I am afraid that I am terribly disappointed with com class. We are about a full month in and there still has not been any speaking, in fact, there is no speaking being done until the 20th. This class has revolved around lectures and memorizing idiotically long names for common sense concepts. It just seems a ridiculous waste of my time, money, and talents...which, as a very wise and snarky man once pointed out, translates to money, money, and money(time is money, talents are used to procure money, und so weiter). Congratulations us, we have...

My patience waxes and wanes. The person trying my patience, and the needling actions they are using in their desperate attempt to join the church triumphant at my hand, can have the most marked and profound impact on the resilience of said patience. Sadly, every once and awhile, I am reduced to a pitiable state, in which my only concentration is regaining my composure. (Hypothetical Example) I am sitting in a comfortable chair. I am reading Aristotle, just like any other good little boy with intellectual pretensions. I am starting to hit my stride in reading and I am totally relaxed. Now imagine(ya know, hypothetical like) that a Hun, sitting not three feet away, tearing into who knows what, started making the most disgusting noises as he masticated; a full sound and picture show. Imagine that my concentration was broken and that my stomach was now turning over. Naturally, my first thought was to reach across and strangle the barbarian. I think it was probably good that I, hypothetical...