Thursday, November 17, 2005

Class Over
I finished with one of my classes last night. When the semester started I was excited about this class because it was an introduction to public history, and I discovered that we were going to discuss museums and historic preservation. I'd had no idea - the course was required for my program so I really didn't look into it and I hadn't really known what "public history" was really supposed to be.
But the class got rather tiresome. The instrutor was a little quirky with the comments he wrote on our papers. When a paragraph started with a statement he would write in the margin saying we should explain the statement further, even when we did so later in the paragraph. I compared notes with other students so I know it wasn't just me. He was also really picky about word choice and grammer, and sometimes he was just wrong. You don't start a sentence with the word "but;" nonetheless, on one paper that instructor advised me to.
I had an odd experience in that class with another student. It was a guy, and he and I just hit it off. He always greeted me when I came in and he would come and find me on breaks to talk to me. I may seem shallow or prurient, when the guy might have just been honestly friendly, but at one point I really wondered what was up. He and I were not the only two guys in the class, but he not pal around with the others as much as did with me. In one class the discussion wandered into the phenomenon of pilots and plane crews painting logos, cartoon characters, and Vargas women on the noses of their aircraft during WWII. This guy spoke up and said, "So if there's so many more women in the military these days, are they gonna start painting naked men on their planes? That'd be cool."
This statement didn't help.
I decided to continue to be friendly but businesslike, if you see what I mean. I don't really need any complications. I'm glad I set my boundaries, sometime in the weeks after he made the above statement he commented to me how hot a girl passing by was. And* the class is over now, and he's in a different track than I am, and I may never see him again.
While it was kind of confusing for a while, over all I've decided it was kinda cool. The guy liked my company. I must be doing something right.
*You actually aren't supposed to start a sentence with "and" either, but we're casual here.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Wouldn't It Be Ironic . . .
If the new fledgling Iraq charges the United States with human rights violations . . .

Monday, November 14, 2005

That Guy Again
Over the weekend we watched Boogie Nights. Today I was reading a Rolling Stone while I was eating lunch and saw an article about the new Truman Capote movie. I suddenly realised that the guy who plays Capote is the same guy who played the creepy technician Scotty in Boogie Nights. He also played the snob Freddy in The Talented Mr. Ripley and the philandering minister in Cold Mountain and the writer in Almost Famous.