I Am Completely Serious

(This text was originally posted on LiveJournal. It has been reformatted (awkwardly) for use on WordPress.)

Oh, my god.

I might have driven Shitty Art Teacher away. She’s gone. She was tenured and her picture was on advertisements and she’s gone.

One semester after I sent in my horrible, nasty, mean, signed evaluation. A year after The Voice, who did the same thing, returned to haunt her.

Oh, my god.

The world probably doesn’t revolve around me, or even the anime club, but… seriously. I get the idea that people have only started getting really nasty about her the past couple years, and I know she’s really thin-skinned. Did I help break her?

I was just going, “I HAVE THE POWER” at first, but now I’m trying to figure out if I should feel guilty. I mean… tenure. She didn’t have to quit, she could have just stopped sucking, or something…

…

( And now, the happy post, written pre-the-first-stirrings-of-a-guilty-conscience: )

Edited to put a cut in, ’cause it was long.

Continue reading “Scary Monks = an okay band name”

Sensei just discovered Tezuka’s Adolf (he says it’s my fault) and thinks it is the most cracktastic Japan-thing this whole week. He didn’t say “cracktastic,” though. We need to teach him the word, I think it encapsulates the essence of what he looks for in his Important Modern Japanese Literature. Sensei is a good teacher for this particular batch of Japanese majors, because he clearly went into the field for all the wrong reasons.

Some girl said “reshape the framework of our viewpoint.”

I was scribbling stuff I found amusing in my notebook the whole time, but I’m too tired to type it up suddenly and am going to bed.

My grades are not up yet (while other people’s are) because I forgot to fill out the teacher evaluations.

The last class of the semester was comm. Here are my notes in full:

I spent about fifteen minutes trying to decide what he was saying, and then the school year was over.

I keep using sound effects for post titles. If I’d used a sound effect for the title of essay-pocalypse, it would have been “HACK *die*”.

Essay-pocalypse weighed in at twenty-seven pages. And then I went to work.

So I AM READING MANGA TONIGHT PEOPLE OKAY

I have a sweet taste in my mouth that will not go away. It is definitely because of the antibiotic or something. It doesn’t mean *anything* about my blood sugar. That’s just bullshit.

…

AAAAAGH ESSAY-POCALYPSE.

I walked out of the health center this morning with a paper bag containing:

* 1 box of Sudafed

* 1 bottle of Mucinex

* 2 packages of throat lozenges

* 8 packets of salt (for warm salt water for gargling)

* 6 packets of honey (for tea)

The sorts of things they hand out down there amuse me. I wonder if they also keep tomato juice for people wandering in with hangovers.

The nurse was very insistent about the curative powers of the honey, and my throat is presently so swollen I can feel *exactly* where the air’s going when I breathe, so I just used half of one of the packets. I feel completely justified in saying that you people who sweeten tea are criminals.

I nearly missed the mandatory East Asian department meeting because I was drugged and sleepy and totally forgot. I only left my room because I couldn’t get hold of Professor Portentous on the phone, and needed to ask for an extension on a paper. I went up to his office, saw that it was still empty, and laid down on the couch out front for a few minutes to wait, until The Artist who Formerly Wore a Beret All the Time pointed out to me that he was probably at the meeting.

So I staggered in something like forty-five minutes late, and Sensei, Mr. Smuckles, and Professor Portentous all laughed at me. I am not expected to be responsible.

There is an award ($500) that they give out to the really studious Chinese majors, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, this year’s went to The Tao. They’d made The Tao give a speech about his senior research, as an example to the rest of us of the proper way to do it, and I cleverly timed my entrance to right in the middle of this speech. I should argue that The Tao is only able to exist within the East Asian department because I am here to counterbalance him, and that therefore I should get $500, too.

My schedule has been destroyed. *Again.*

You are *fired*, Sensei.

I finally got volumes six and seven in from ILL yesterday, and I read them last night, and it was almost unbelievably slashy* and I was right about everything it just all came out at the end of volume six, and now I can completely truthfully say that I’m using Pokemon comic as one of the primary sources for my senior research.

I think I’m going to ruin some people on scans_daily‘s day when I’ve got some more free time; I don’t feel up to explaining the awesomeness of this manga right now and without plenty of visual aids scanned in.

* and I looked up the illustrator, MATO, last night, and saw that she does Gundam Wing doujinshi for-Christ’s-sake, so it’s not my imagination

Today’s (yesterday’s) methods by which I have amused/discomfited the masses while sleep-deprived and panicking for various good reasons:

Prof. Portentous: The question is, do I have the tests graded. The answer is, yes.

Me, “These-aren’t-the-droids-you’re-looking-for” voice: I don’t think you *really* have the tests graded.

Prof. Portentous: Oh, you don’t, do you. Do you think I should wait to give them out?

Me, continuing: In fact, I think the tests were lost in a… freak anteater accident…

Prof. Portentous: Yeah, pass those around, please.

-

Me, checking out a book with scary red eyes on the cover to Real-Tall-san: I’m laughing at your book… there’s too many books with scary eyes on the cover sitting back there, especially glowy red eyes…

Real-Tall-san, nervously: Heh heh…

Me: It’s what you put on books about terrorists or cryptography, there’s like laws about it -

Real-Tall-san, faintly offended: Okay, so next time I’ll -

Me: You should be more careful!

-

Me, answering the phone: Library Circulation, may I help you?

Person on line: [stuff my co-worker couldn't hear]

Me: …Jesus?

Co-worker: *looks up at me very slowly*

The girl on the line had been asking about a video titled “Jesus,” of which we had three. Since she’d called on the phone rather than checking the online catalog, naturally she could not identify which of them she wanted, and naturally each was in a slightly different state of availability.

Duplex printing makes me feel less guilty about my collusion in the destruction of the earth.

My class schedule’s due in tomorrow. I HAVE NO IDEA SIR.

I was erasing a lot of the furigana I wrote on my Japanese homework yesterday, so as to force myself to actually memorize stuff, and I realized I’d written down the hiragana for *the number four*. This irritated me seriously, to the point that I considered writing a rude note to myself there.

At that point it occurred to me that if you were a Japanese asshole, you could put furigana on really easy kanji that just insulted people for not knowing them.

Incidentally, the furigana does not *actually* say “fuck alla y’alls” – it says “screw alla y’alls.” This is because I changed my mind halfway through, and Paint Shop Pro *for some reason won’t let me insert Japanese text* christ what the hell, so I had to take screenshots of Wordpad and then do all this retouching to make the text look right against the darker background and screw fuck it I wasn’t going through that *twice*.

I was up in the stacks shelving earlier, and one of the books was called Great First Lines. I opened it to a random page to stick my culprit-slip in, and it said, “Call me Ishmael.”

I said, “Well, fuck you, too.”

My head hurts and the fan is too noisy, and I’m feeling kind of resentful at the world in general. I am pretty sure that my Comm book’s unattractive orange color is deliberate and aggressive. The dorm’s dryer burnt the shirts I just bought this morning. On purpose.

I’ll show you, objects. I’ll show you all.

This is not, in fact, how one writes the kanji for “chikai”:

My bad.

…

…so I kind of… yeah…

So I kind of *completely forgot there was a quiz today*, okay?

I don’t recall this working out too well in high school history, either, so I’m not sure why I felt I had to go and *reprise* the whole *debacle*. I guess it just sort of *occurred* to me that, like, *maybe* drawing a hat and a pie – in lieu of, you know, something distantly resembling a serious answer – might be in some way *more acceptable* in a college Japanese class than in high school American history. Can you even tell that that’s a pie? I think it looks like a burger. I should have at least drawn a *better* pie, if I’m going to be drawing pies on my work at all. I mean, Christ.

-

There was also an Asian Civ test today. (which is why I forgot about the quiz and ended up drawing @$%#%-ING PIES on it…) While studying this morning, I came across the below passage in my notes – poor chronology and random capitalization and punctuation left intact for your consideration:

* Yu – supposedly first Emperor of Xia

* First “China” is Xia around 2000 BC.

The type of student that I am is what is known in the clinical terms as a “terrible, terrible student.”

Oh, the pleasure’s all mine, Mrs. Comm Presentation! Here, can I help you with your coat – *my god* she’s got a gun -

-

To be hallowed – accordingly -

- *bitch.*

(This text was originally posted on LiveJournal. It has been reformatted (awkwardly) for use on WordPress.)

That Woman came up to me after and said, sounding kinda surprised, “That was actually quite good.” Soon I shall feast upon her entrails. Of *course* it was a fucking good presentation. It’s because I am fucking *eight million times* smarter than you, you *bitch*. You are a *shitty art teacher* and I am a *genius* who is such a *sophisticated internet user* that I use *asterisks* rather than CAPS LOCK to lend *emphasis* to *words*.

( Disclaimer: I am a snob and am about to be completely unfair to my classmates. (But not to the professor, I don’t think.) My excuse is that I’ve hurt my foot and my head feels like gnomes are hammering and sparkling their way out of it. But still, take note – I am going to be an asshole here. You might want to go read a Janet Kagan book or something instead if, you know, you’re not into that kinda thing. Eat some chocolate. )

…Okay.

My notes also included a picture I drew of Generica Villainous forcing our hero Casey the Overeducated Berserker to kneel before her, which I maintain is within the scope of the class because it was part of a larger narrative, and that narrative also has a ninja in it, and ninja are Japanese. *Asian narrative art*, people.

Continue reading “So I gave an awesome presentation last week.”

I created a tag called “hate” for that last post, as I consider it likely that I will eventually make *others* properly described by the word.

Man, I ain’t *never* gonna break the chains of samsara and attain Buddha-hood at *this* rate.

The reason that I am incompetent is that I said “seme” in the last post, but it should have been “uke.” If I don’t do something to stop this slide, man, soon I just know I’m gonna fuck up something important – I mean, I feel like if I’m not careful I’m gonna be talking about Angel Sanctuary but actually mean X or something, and someone’s just gonna end up *dead*, you know? I still have these bad flashbacks to the time that girl confused A. J. Hall and Cassie Claire, and that kid ended up with burns all over his face, you know? That could’ve been me. I don’t know if I have the nerve for fandom anymore, I mean, I just *don’t know*.

Someone write me a paper about Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio and the Chinese fantastic tradition real quick.

I really have trouble taking you seriously when you wear that scarf.

At least don’t flop it around so goddamn much while you’re talking, we are *indoors*, there is *no wind to mess it up* here. You are not a fucking pallid seme lingering on a seaside cliff.

I was listening to The New Pornographers before chemistry lab. I am now fairly certain that Bleeding Heart Show is about halides. Also, that the phrase “lead-two acetate” is in there *somewhere*.

I keep following Jenan’s advice about Chinese Lit assignments and getting C’s. I think I will stop doing that now. Bad Jenan.