I'm Feeling Fine, You're Feeling the Same

That's what now, like eight firedrills? What the eff. Gramercy is turning out to be much more of a hassle than I had expected. We already have to deal with the 20-25 minute+ walk to campus and now firedrills every other day?? God. I mean, we already have hardwood floors, new unused beds, stainless steel appliances, and air conditioning. My life freakin' sucks. Everyone has a good life but me. Sigh.

Other than this day being the two day anniversary of what is soon to be a horrid-Herpes-like-aggressive STI-like-Gramercy Green tradition, firedrills aren't the only things that have been adding some spice and genital warts to my life. Classes started today! Not to say that class will give me genital warts or other STIs, but if you paid attention to my previous post, all the unprotected sex I'll be having with my faculty may very well pass-on to me some crotch-gifts.

Anyways, I really enjoyed classes today! Despite having an 8AM recitation and it having the first-day awkward silence and stare-ingness that first days of classes tend to have, my recitation leader was/is really awesome. She's been smuggled into Sudan, Uganda, and Cuba and other places like human contraband and has written some very amazing pieces of journalistic work. She owns like two PR firms or something, was a cop, and has two degrees--one in Criminal Justice and one in Sociology as well as a Masters in Journalism. All in all, she's a nice, super accomplished lady. It's pretty boss having someone like her as my recitation leader.

My only problem with the recitation was the obligatory first-day ice-breakers. We had to introduce ourselves in the classic inverted-pyramid-journalistic style, revealing the most important details of our lives then to the most general/least important. I was caught way off guard and wasn't really sure what to say...I mean, I'm a rockin' person--how is any detail about my life any less interesting than the last?

So of course, I took the logical step and started chronologically. I was pushed through my mom's vagina, which I imagine was a bittersweet experience. My passing through her birth canal, to my mom's pain and chagrin probably was canceled out by the joy of her first son being born. So that's cool. I skipped around after that, saying that I was diagnosed with this weird blood condition where blood vessels cluster in my left leg and form masses that burst randomly. I told them about how I thought when I was five or six, I thought I was perpetually wetting the bed because my blood masses would pop and bleed all over my bed. I'd be like "goddmanit! I peed this ho-bitch-ass bed again!" (because I was a potty-mouth when I was younger) and then I'd be turn on the lights and be like "shieet, this is blood!" and then I'd wish that I really did have a bladder problem that caused me to wet the bed instead of my leg randomly bursting into a blood volcano. Needless to say, I went on to explain that I had surgery twice because of it. I mentioned the fact that if I had been old enough to know what a period was, but young enough to be confused by the female anatomy, I'd probably think I was just having massive periods all the time. I mean, I had two period-having sisters. Who knows, maybe I could've been a very mislead kid who thought he had random explosive-diarrheaesque periods.

I know what you're thinking. Did I really explain this ordeal in my life so vividly and with so much detail to my class? NO.

I explained with much much much more descriptive adverbs and showy adjectives.

And then I went on to explain my interest in journalism and why I'm taking the class and that I'm from Seattle (to my delight, a guy from my recitation is from Tacoma--woo!).

We also watched a PBS clip of how to write leads and such with some softcore-porny music. That was pretty sweet, too.

After my recitation, I realized I had these awkward 90 minute gaps between my classes. Not long enough for me to walk twenty minutes back to my dorm and the twenty minutes back to campus, but not short enough for me to take a leisurely promenade to my next class. I ascertained that these short breaks would serve as mini-homework sessions. Or possibly, power nap sessions? Well, probably not the latter, because I don't like sleeping in public. I tried it once, but apparently sleeping in my comfortable way (nakedly) is not publicly or socially acceptable.

So I went to Kimmel and read/contemplated what I wanted to eat for a snack. I ended up finishing my reading and getting a Kashi protein bar, which I rationed for my long day ahead of me.

I met Alexis in front of the Tisch building for the Journalism lecture, and had to sit with my recitation group when I got there. Prof. Mitch Stevens is awesome--very funny and very bald. Kind of Mr. Borba-y. This class will be a 'back-breaker' as my recitation leader would say, but I'm sure I'll learn a lot from it. Or at least that's what I'll be telling myself when I'm crying over my laptop after not having eaten for three days because of the essays and reading we have.

After that, I ran into Sarah, Amanda, and Claire at Upstein and nostalgically grabbed for a blueberry yogurt parfait. That stuff is effing delicious. I gladly ate my snack and awkwardly waved at people I know that filtered through the eating area. This girl unintentionally stole Sarah's chair, so we left.

I ended up back at Kimmel to kill some time before my next class. I couldn't remember where it was and wanted to use one of the computers to check my schedule but of course all the second floor computers were being used. So I ventured to the seventh floor where all the computers were locked. God. See how much my life sucks?

So I ended up just trying to remember where my class was and taking a chance about where it was. I'm a risk-taker.

I went to the bookstore and ran into Leslie and walked with her through WSP back to Kimmel where I peed and walked to my next class.

This was probably one of my favorite classes thus far--Policing Same Sex Desires. It was super interesting and when we got to the talk about lesbians, I turned to Glenn and said "HEY LESBO!" and we cracked up laughing. It was terrific and totally appropriate. And then our professor said his partner and other cool GLBTQQTSI writers would come talk to us. So sounds super interesting. In fact, I just finished reading a section of Lesbian Outlaw. Super cool.

Anyways, it's like 1AM and luckily I don't have class until 2PM. It's super exciting, because I've never had a class at 2PM, or at least had a class at 2PM that starts my academic day. Pretty snazzy.

Wow, this post turned out to be way longer than I thought. Why did you read all the way to down here? Do you really care about what happens in my life? Okay. Cool.

All the best,
Pee Wong

*The Virgins--Radio Christiane