It's been a long week with many late nights doing homework, rehearsals, projects, and all the while suffering from an addiction to the book The Wise Man's Fear. Now it's Friday night and I'm ready to relax, sleep, and just enjoy the weekend, yet I can't help remembering how I licked someone's toe earlier this week. Yeah. That wasn't exactly something that was on my bucket list.
While playing Truth or Dare at two in the morning, and me a little tipsy by then, I was commanded to lick some poor guy's toe. The funny thing is that I wasn't too reluctant to do this. That's not to say that I enjoy licking peoples' feet (leave that to the politicians and lobbyists), but I had a drink waiting for me and I thought "Ah, hell, why not? Alcohol's a sterilizer, right?" So out comes the tongue, followed by a quick dash to the sink to spit out... whatever was in my mouth, then a good booze mouth rinse. Disgusting as that was, I've got a sneaking suspicion that I would probably do it again if I were sober, so long as I had some alcohol on hand. You would need to pay me first though.
Aside from that little incident, this week is a blur in my memory. I did write down specific moments that I thought might be entertaining, and it is only by reading about them that I can actually remember the scenes clearly. That's always been a peculiar thing about me. I cannot seem to remember my own life quite as well as I remember what I read in a novel or see in a movie. I will forget a person's name five minutes after we're introduced and not memorize it for a month, yet I can read a book and give you a list of main characters, their personality types, professions, and probably a brief family tree five months later. I can remember scenes from The Giver, which I read back in the fifth grade, and describe them to you, yet I could not tell you what my own sixteenth birthday was like and there wasn't a drop of alcohol involved that day to boot. Maybe I'm just suited for story telling. Either that or I'm an oblivious nincompoop. That's a strong possibility also.
I'm always a little bothered by how much Americans puff themselves up about our involvement in the world wars. We tend to claim that we were the biggest force in the wars and that we were also responsible for the Allies' victory. The last part is, to some extent, true, as we provided just enough support to tip the tremulous balance and help determine the victors. However, that was only after each of the major countries, both ally and otherwise, had sacrificed millions of soldiers for their cause and won great victories and suffered horrendous defeats. All the while, before we sent troops, the U.S. was making a fortune in arms manufacturing which, one could theoretically argue, is what made us into a superpower in the first place (sorry to all of you uber-patriots out there). We had this discussion about U.S. involvement in the great wars during history class at the beginning of the week while we were studying the Cold War. I think that I might have surprised my classmates with my rather non-stereotypical perspective. In jest, and in vague reference to the Game of Thrones series, I even likened us to crows, as we fed off of the death, fear, and misery of millions, yet also helped to win the day. One of the other guys in class (we'll call him Bob, as that's the most common name that I know), perhaps in a vain attempt at humor, said "Yeah. Pretty much a bunch of large, ugly, feathery lumps of greed and scavenging."
I turned to him aghast and my face showing it in every way. "Bob!" I exclaimed. "You should not speak of your family in such a way!" That got a few laughs. While I had brought his comment upon myself, it was a tad bit irritating to hear such a blatantly (and I'm not sure jokingly) slanderous statement. Besides, my stomach had just erupted in hungry growls five minutes prior and I wanted everyone to chuckle at someone else for a while.
On the subject of school, while the U.S. school system is flawed and hurting in a rather bad way, I'm glad that I was educated in it. In the U.S., almost every school (if not every school) requires its students to take courses in every discipline until the year that they graduate and head to university. This gives us a lot of freedom to explore and feel our way through what we are good at, discover where our flaws lay, and experiment with what we might enjoy and most U.S. universities also require this sort of general education. While this turns pupils into well-rounded scholars, it also anticipates a very important matter: Almost nobody knows what they want to do for the rest of their lives when they're twenty, no less sixteen. While I now say that I want to be a novelist for the rest of my time, for all I know I could very well experience a strange hormonal and intellectual change during university and realize that particle physics is my true calling. I have had little experience with physics, but I have been versed in the scientific process through courses in biology and chemistry and anatomy and physiology and am familiar with everything up to rudimentary calculus, which would give me at least a small foundation to build upon while I learn introductory physics. England has no such flexibility. It seems that they begin a student's
early academic career with general courses, observe where they excel, and then
start to remove the other courses around year eleven, funneling the student into a certain career
path that they are almost obligated to follow if they attend a European university. I understand the desire to crank out very specialized students who can excel in their field, as they have not "wasted" their time with unrelated courses, but the notion of funneling students into a certain career path from age twelve seems narrow minded to me. All around me I see students who are set on one track or another and yet haven't the faintest clue as to what they really want to do in life. What if a would-be medical student had been encouraged to take an unfamiliar class like music theory and discovered that they actually wanted to be a music teacher? The option just does not appear to exist unless they decide to work extra hard in the International Baccalaureate program which I feel might be suicide for some. I would not be surprised if a lot of people here go through university and their careers with no passion for anything, never discovering a true vocation. While that still happens in the U.S. frequently enough, the system at least cultivates an expanding, inquisitive, restless mind. As I implied, I might not be getting the full picture here, as I am a foreigner after all, so if I'm getting any of this wrong, please tell me and I'll amend this little rant.
Which reminds me that I downloaded Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs the other night. For those of you who don't know, the first Amnesia game was quite possibly the scariest thing that I have ever seen in my life, topping even high places and a certain test (those from Bridgewater will know what I mean). My neighbor and friend came in when I had finished the download and, without any prompting, we both started yelling. We yelled at the top of our lungs and I projected my voice as if I were on stage at the Houston Grand Opera. We gave each other high fives and reveled in how terrified we would soon become! Strange isn't it, how enthusiastic we can be to terrify ourselves? All other creatures would avoid fear like the plague, yet people flock to the latest horror flick like sheep. Is it that we have become so detached from our natural state of insecurity in the wild that we have come to crave fear because our brains are hardwired to be wary and afraid? Perhaps we crave fear almost as much as we desire symmetry and orderly habits. Almost everyone has a routine that they are irked to break.
Fun exercise: Go into a classroom early, where everyone has picked for themselves a usual spot, and then sit right in the middle, forcing the others to find different seats as they come. I'll bet you almost anything that at least one person will get up in arms about you screwing with the natural order of things. I know that my history teacher did when I moved just so and squirreled things. The other students took it in fair stride (props to them), but the good man himself looked like a deer in the headlights as he registered the change. Come to think of it, that might actually be a fun exercise for my sociology class... Heh heh. Evil thoughts.
By the way: My fellow dorm rats have taken to requesting that I rap for them in the common room at nights and, since I am a closet attention hog, I oblige them. Thus, if any videos of me appear on Facebook or YouTube, please keep in mind that what I'm rapping is (more often than not) meant to be satire, I am not a violent alcoholic womanizer (though the last part might be fun), and feel free to like the posts if they appear, which I hope that they don't.
I think that's enough yammering for one night. Tune in next week for another installment of "It Isn't Raining THAT Much," brought to you by yours truly! This production is due, in part, to your feedback! If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns that might improve the program, please leave a comment or call this toll free number (which doesn't actually exist). Okay, yeah, I think that I'm running this '70s TV broadcast joke into the dirt now, but you get the idea. Good night to all and to all a good night!
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