Temporary Diversion

I think I need to talk myself out of taking notes on my laptop. I spend way too much time on the internet, looking at things that I don't need to look at (not porn). In fact, I am in class right now. I'm not listening at all and sometimes I block things out so thoroughly that I really have no idea what's going on for a solid thirty minutes. Here are the pros and cons of having my computer in class with me.

Pros:

1. Taking notes is so much faster. I get all the information I need as quickly as I need it. I don't have to waste precious, precious paper to write out a bunch of unnecessary notes that I will inevitably throw away the second after the final. This way, I can just put my notes in the trash, quick and easy (you can't recycle on a computer, they should call it the recycling bin to increase awareness of recycling and nitpicking.)

2. I can carry my computer instead of several notebooks. It's cleaner and lighter and takes up less room. Also,

Cons:

1. I spend an ungodly amount of time on: facebook, digg, and somethingawful. I become a bigger nerd every day. It's an addiction. I get to the point where when I actually have to take notes, I consider it an inconvenience and an interruption of more important work.

2. I check my email every 5.3 seconds. I never have new emails. I become depressed.

3. I spent an entire 2 hours reading wikipedia articles on Salman Rushdie and whatever links off of his entry.

4. I talk to Kamran too much and I say things that are either mean but joking("I hate you"), don't make any sense ("poooooooooop"), or just things that are boring or useless ("yeah.") He puts up with me.

5. I think people might see what I'm looking at or writing, and even though it's normal stuff, it makes me uncomfortable.

6. My computer is slow and takes forever to start up. It also takes up my whole damn desk. I need room for my pencil. I might need it.

I thought of way more cons, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to continue taking my computer to class. It's just so much more fun to read digg than listen to whatever the hell my teacher is talking about. We'll see what my test grades are to see the real answer.

Posted by Cassie at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I haven't written in a long time. I haven't had anything to say. I still don't really.

I was going to publish a review of the Twilight movie, but I didn't want to piss off any fangirls (re: my sister.) I really can't think of what I want to say.

All I've been trying to do lately is sit down and read- for fun. I either don't have the time normally or I'm so tired from reading for class that I would be insane to read on my own time. The words all jumble together and don't make any sense. I try to make the time before I go to bed or instead of going on my computer, but the past few days I have actually fallen asleep in my computer chair. Like a cat.

I made a list of books I want to read, which keeps getting bigger everyday. I don't think I'll ever finish the list, but my few of heaven is a large library with eternity to read whatever I want. So hopefully God will take pity on me and let me read all the books on my list in heaven.

I'm reading three books right now. This isn't a feat or anything, one is a book on tape, one is a play for French class, and one is just a regular old novel. The audiobook is Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. It's interesting but a bit repetitive. It's difficult to listen to it on the way to class because either the busses drown out the voice on my ipod or I feel like the narrator is repeating the same sentence over and over again. I'm complaining, but I do like the book overall. (5 discs left, 5 discs left…)

The play for French class is Le Portrait de Dora by Helene Cixous. It's pretty standard, but I'm surprised about the amount of weird sex scenes. Although I guess Freud is one of the main characters.

The novel I'm reading is The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I may sound like a sci-fi nerd for reading something with both the word martian and chronicles, but it's Bradbury, so get over yourself. Bradbury's style is like lyrics to me, I guess. He describes things so differently than any other author I've read. He describes how things feel rather than how they look, he mixes the senses and creates something else. It's nice to see an author who clearly loves what he does and loves his characters. He's one of my favorite authors. If I had the time to just sit around and read him all day, I would. But I don't have that time, I'm wasting it on writing this blog.

Posted by Cassie at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Since I haven't written anything in forever and a half, I figured I would slowly ease back into the task of writing mediocre opinion pieces on subjects that apparently no one but myself cares about. My first post of the year, and I'm wasting it on a summary of my classes. This is all I have in life.

1. Biological Psychology: Seems like an okay class at first, until they start talking. This is no regular psychology class. I've taken about ten since coming to the University, and this is the only one I've taken that relies on real science. The only one that uses several methods to explain real, concrete information. Whereas with other psychology classes, there's always this sort of leeway, it might be true, there's a correlation, but there's no real way to be sure. Well this time, they're sure. They cut up a bunch of dead guys and studied what was in there. Unfortunately, we now have to study all the gross inside-stuff that they found.

2. French Theatre: I like my teacher, I've had her for three classes now. No complaints. More Sartre? No thank you.

3. Abnormal Psychology: I like the content, but the problem I have with this class is that it meets at night. I hate night classes. I had successfully avoided them until this semester. I had two my freshman year and I vowed I would not take another my entire college career. My vow was broken, and now I am shamed. My family is also shamed. And I have to sit next to smelly people. The first night of class I almost threw up because the woman sitting next to me (bored housewife?) smelled like chicken salad and fruity lip balm. Now I sit next to a post-Goth kid with a rectangular beard who smokes during breaks. I honestly prefer the smoke over the lip balm. I'll talk lung cancer over chicken salad chapstick any day.

4. Social Psychology: I love this class. My definite favorite this semester. My professor swears (a lot). Here is a small list of the words she has said in class:
Asshole
Bitch
Shit
Shit
Shit
Cock
Vagina
Prostitute
Slut
The word cock was actually written in the notes. No joke. This woman is brilliant. She should teach every one of my classes. She should have her own television show and book deal. I love this class.

5. Honors Seminar: This class was supposed to be a seminar based on the study of autism. When we all showed up to start the class on the first day, the professor informed us that he didn't want to teach about autism anymore. Apparently there must be an unwritten understanding that professors can just teach whatever they want without informing anyone, even the students, that the class is going to completely change. He's now teaching us about prosopagnosia, where a person does not recognize/differentiate between faces. Now, this is still semi-interesting, don't get me wrong. But is it really a three-credit class, one semester long? Is it worth that much time and energy? And the professor doesn't even really know anything about the disorder. He's just "interested" in it. Yeah. So we're taking the class and he's taking the class, basically. I'm so glad a college-education is worth this much to the administration. What a great semester I have to look forward to.

Posted by Cassie at 8:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)