Ne Me Quitte Pas

That's it. I've reached the stage where I start using song titles that have nothing to do with my post as titles for my posts.

So, I was trying to download some James Taylor, and the first seven thousand songs that appeared were all "Fire and Rain." You may think I'm exaggerating for the sake of humor, but I'm not. There were 7,353 results, and I kid you not, at least the first seven thousand were all "Fire and Rain." Now, don't get me wrong, that's a great song. I used to be able to play it on the piano. But there are other songs of his that are also good. A lot of them, actually.

I read in the paper today that two kids from my hometown are semi-finalists for the Presidential Scholars Award or whatever that thing is. They both went to my elementary school (they're a year younger, of course.) I wish I knew who made it last year, cause I bet Webber was one of them, and he also went to my elementary school. I wish it wasn't becoming so retarded, as I hear it is, cause I totally had plans to move back home when I had kids for the sole purpose of sending them there.

Everyone should go listen to some Regina Spektor music. My french tutor introduced her to me. She rocks. She's not French, though; she's Russian. But she mostly sings in English, so you know what she's saying. For starters, I would suggest something from "Soviet Kitsch" or perhaps "Us" or "Chemo Limo" (no clue what album those are on.)

There are two things this school does that are somewhat unusual, one that is cool, one that pisses me off. One, it makes it mandatory for everyone in a language class to go to a tutoring session where a senior majoring in that language can help you in a much smaller setting (although our language classes, like all our other classes, usually only have about 15-30 people in them). So you basically get one-on-one help from someone not as intimidating as a professor. My tutor is sort of a friend of my friend's friend, which I know seems far fetched, but he's pretty cool and since we sorta both know some of the same people, we can interact on a more informal and comfortable level. I started going to this club with him, that was right after our tutoring session, and it's actually organized by the same people that organized my "cult" (not a real cult, but my friend calls it that, and it's easier to call it that than explain about it. But I swear it's not a cult), so that was kinda neat. I went this week by myself cause he had gone home for the night for some reason (which is weird cause he doesn't really live close to this godforsaken town) and got invited back to their appartment for drinks and movies, since we didn't have classes the next day. They're fun people.

The other thing this university does that is fucking retarded, is makes you work for your scholarships. If I had wanted to do work study, I would have. But I worked hard in high school to get these scholarships (hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *deep breath* hahahahahahahahahahahaha) so I shouldn't have to work for them now. But we have to put in at least five hours a week to keep our scholarships (besides maintaining a 3.25 gpa) which is bullshit, because scholarships are supposed to be money that they give you for free. And they don't even help you get a scholarship job, you just have to wander from department to department and professor to professor seeing if they'll take you. I'm shy and that doesn't work so well, and it still pisses me off.

So I was gonna go home for a few hours on Sunday with a couple kids from my cult to go to the open house at the mosque, but none of us has a car, and that's sorta a problem. They definitely need to start running Amtrak on the cargo lines so I can just take the train home, cause otherwise I'd have to take it to the capital and drive half an hour home, which would sort of defeat the purpose of not having to have a car.

Not having a car blows hard core.

Man, I was thinking of something earlier, and I came up with the best fucking simile for it ever, but then I forgot what it was I was thinking of and the simile I came up for it. And that makes me sad.

This summer I'm going to have a big dinner party on my back patio just after dusk, and there's going to be candles and lights everywhere and fireflies in the yard and good bluesy music and intimate conversations. And I'm going to invite my St Louis friend, because she promised she'd come visit lots over the summer. She reminds me of all the people I loved before they turned stupid. Including myself. Which kind of sounds really narcissistic, and I guess is.

But now it's time to go read my cool book one more time. (After you listen to Regina Spektor, go read "The unpleasant profession of Jonathan Hoag" and if no other stories in that collection, at least "And he built a crooked house." Those are by one of my favorite authors, by the way: Robert Heinlein.)