Not dead yet.

College is intense, but it hasn't killed me. This is my post from mdlbear's office @ work.

ICS class is actually fairly boring, but the interview should be fun and informative. The downside to said interview is I will need to use a tape recorder and have to play it back countless times while I'm typing up this five page transcript of said interview. This paper is 25% of my grade, so here's hoping I can write a paper worth while. Because the subject of the interview is an ethnographer (one who studies other cultures), I am going to include as the final question "How does this interview contrast with what you do for a living?" and blow my teacher away. I also had to do a cultural event report (and I should do another 4 because they're extra credit) and I still have to type that up. I have until the end of the quarter to do them, however...so that is a good thing.

As for politics around school, I don't want to get started. I've been hit on by one of the groupies I hang out with, asking me to break my commitment to my current love, Mayhem (whom I have been with for 2 years). This I cannot and will not submit to, because everyone knows that when you choose a partner it should be for life. (Not always saying this is the way it turns out, but saying it because it's the truth.) I've also been the mediator of a few arguments, the victim of several 'spiked soda' and coffee incidents (putting penguin mints into things isn't considered "spiking", is it?) and a few other things as well. Doesn't mean that I'm a bad kid, just means that I'm a bit more involved with the group than I should be.

People at school think I'm a cool person, or believe me to be scary, or think I'm a little bit insane, or think I am completly normal. This is an understatement and a half, because I am what everyone else around me percieves me as. Not what I think I am in everone else's eyes.

As for the other stuff, homework is not as intense as I thought it was, aside from the massive reading. That's really all it is, and we're not required to take notes in anything except for ICS class, where the instructor actually gives us questions that need to be answered. With only 1 class that meets every day and 2 classes that meet on Tues/Thurs, I have plenty of time to eat, nap, read, or whatever. It makes it all the more interesting, because I'm going to try starting a RPG/Card game club on campus in addition to the homework, the group, etc. Life is never what it seems, and nobody is ever what they apppear to be. And trying to juggle my convention schedule around my classes is going to be very interesting indeed.

That's all for now. Will write interview posts occasionally, uploading them to the GC site when finished.

That was very amusing.

I never had a conversation with an ethnographer before today. I mentioned in my last post that I had to do an oral interview with one of mdlbear's cow-orkers and had to write a 5 page paper.

Here's what happened: I walked into the office and we talked for a bit about penguin mints, computer technology, cell phones, and a few other things. During the actual taping (which took place after the random banter), I recieved a lot of interesting answers and recieved 4 writer's blocks after questions that I couldn't follow up on. I wound up running in circles, making allusions to Regan's "Model Minority" comment and adding a few things to it, talking about comparisons with education here and in Bejing (where she studied as a foreign exchange student), and several other points. The last few minutes of the interview I was telling her my experience growing up in the "Digital Generation" with the evolution of cassette tapes to MP3, the evolution of a type-writer to a Fujitsu S series 6000, and other things that have changed drastically.

The full text of the interview will be available on GC once I get it typed and after the due-date.