The hour badly spent

Might as well say a few words about my book-learnin’ and whatnot, since that’s how I pass the time in between drinks.

So I guess I’ll talk about how much I hate Spanish class.

All the Spanish professors I’ve met here are slightly hostile and give lots of busywork.

And there are way too many messy oral presentations (not the good kind). Becoming fluid at one-on-one conversation is one thing. Stumbling through conversation in front of the whole class is completely different. Last week was our biggest project: a group presentation on racism, sexism, machismo, and marianism. I was all set up to deliver a knockout show, complete with Virgin Mary Powerpoint slides (hottie!). But when I started talking, I kept tripping up and saying "uh, umm." I was feeling really self-conscious about my otherwise excellent espanolish, but then I remembered that I do the exact same stupid stumbly thing in English. So in this class, if you’re not good at public speaking already, tu te coges.

Comedy screenwriting was just not what I thought it would be. We watched some sitcoms - which usually just put me to sleep, because I don’t really watch TV anyway (I know what you’re thinking, and I’ll be the one to make the pretentious douchebag jokes). We wrote a scene for Frasier and a script for 30 Rock. That 30 Rock script was a vampire, sucking all my creative semen like a Korean porn star, leaving me with none for myself (I know what you’re thinking, and I’ll be the one to make the contortionist masturbation jokes).

Last semester, in the process of taking Jonathan Holden’s poetry class, I got used to the act of writing poetry regularly. In screenwriting, all we wrote was that one scene and that one script. I had not become used to writing scenes regulary, so when script time rolled around, yo me cogio’ otra vez (it was another frantic clusterfuck). That whole time period gave me writer’s block, and to top it off, the script turned out sort of unfunny. Hopefully they won’t notice at tomorrow’s workshopping.

But at least that’s all done. Development of the English Language was pretty rad. And now that the worst is behind me in the other courses, maybe I can catch up on the reading for Dr. Potts (legs!), so I can stop faking it in front of her. Heh.

In la clase de Espanol we discussed what older cultural customs our families observe. The kewgrish profesora called on The Hour Badly Spent for perspective.
Most of my culture’s customs are from the 60s. Not that old.
But another student noted that if I listen to jazz, rap, or country, I am, in fact, involved in older cultural norms. Schooled!

Embarrassed at my cultural ignorance, I turned to Heart of Bubbles & Gold. "By the way, I hate rap."
"I am starving," she said, producing a cupcake from a secret backpack compartment. "Pregnant girl’s gotta eat," she shrugged.
"I know you brought two. I’ll be damned if someone eats a homemade cupcake in front of me and I don’t get any."

She only had that one, but she shared. Mmm, banana nut. Eat that, next generation!

My Spanish class is full of superhotties. The final question on this morning’s assignment gleefully reminded me of such. Because, honestly, I hardly ever think about it.

    4. Les prestas tu ropa interior a tus amigos?

Comely Flaxen Locks:     Is that question asking if I give my underwear to my friends?
The Hour Badly Spent:     Of course I do! I’m wearing second-hand tightey-whiteys.
Comely Flaxen Locks:     So you’ve got a chain-letter deal going on, eh?
The Hour Badly Spent:     What about you?
Comely Flaxen Locks:     The correct answer to this is "I don’t wear underwear."

Alex Peak and the rest of y’all think you’re all so stressed in college, probably because in high school you got good grades without studying or doing homework and still managed to be peppy and popular, but suddenly a few years later it’s getting close to finals and the teachers just fucking pile on those exams like Halloween candy and you’ve actually got to study. So listen up kids: that is not stress. Stress is fighting 10 miles of highway traffic to eek into a job where you juggle your coworkers’ backbiting, passive-aggressive bullshit with the demands of a boss whose idea of encouragement is not firing you, and after ten, eleven, twelve hours of that every day you fight traffic again going home so you can catch the last fifteen minutes of Grey’s, which is really all you wanted all day long, and as you nod off for the night, you ponder what your life has come to and has it all been worth it or whatever. Then you wake up three days later in a Mexican jail, with a heroine dependency and a case of the runs, right in front of two middle-aged Federales who are seconds away from cumming in your face, and you think to yourself, "shit, this is just like high school." The awesome thing about college is that once in a while you can just call up someone sexy and interesting, get high and play hookey, and just come back whenever you get around to it. I, unfortunately, am old, and those days are far behind me.

This morning’s conversation with the cute girl I sit next to in Spanish class:

Heart of Bubbles & Gold:    "Your gum smells really strong."

The Hour Badly Spent:       "That’s not my gum. It’s my pheremones. They’re grapity-fresh. Later on they become wine."

Heart of Bubbles & Gold:    "Well, I’ve also got morning sickness. So it could be that everything just smells stronger."

I pondered this for 0.000000000000003 seconds.

"Pregnant?"

"Mm-hm."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

I started to say "oh congratulations" or something like that but I think it came out as "I’d still hit that."