Many Happy Returns

Afternoons & Coffeespoons – Crash Test Dummies

Three days of school done, so many more to go. One at a time, one at a time.

*****

Here’s a brief recap of my classes, which are great so far!

Twentieth Century Canadian Fiction

The first story we had to read was The Wedding Gift, which I’m pretty sure we read in one of our high school English classes at one point or another. Seems simple enough so far. My professor is obviously gay. He fulfills all those stereotypes. Thin. Feminine voice. Limp wristed hand motions. It’s all there. He also has his own annoying quirk (don’t they all?). Rather than actually finish any of his thoughts, he just says “etc., etc.” I can’t even count how many times he did that today. It drove me nuts.

Film Theory

Yes!!! I have to admit that I was intimidated going into this class because I imagined that everyone was going to be super pretentious. Maybe they are, but at least I know that their pretension is as unfounded as my own. The first movie we watched was this French documentary about street bums called The Gleaners and I. I definitely enjoyed it, though it’s obviously not something I would watch for fun. I’m still thinking about it so I guess that’s a good sign. Our prof told us to write a paper about our favourite movies, directors, genres, etc., etc. and we had to read it the next day in tutorial. I love the sound of my own voice, so I had no problems with this. I had to arm myself carefully though, so that my mainstream tendencies didn’t shine through too much. Suffice to say, I passed on mentioning that I had watched Batman Begins three times this summer. I professed my love for the Wizard Of Oz, Pulp Fiction and Annie Hall, which I felt seemed intelligent enough. I even added the disclaimer that I’m not really an indie or foreign film guy. Luckily, the majority of the class was just as self-conscious as I was. Some girl felt bad about liking David Lynch flicks and another student admitted she felt guilty about liking John Hughes films. Why would you be ashamed about liking Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? This class is going to be awesome.

Shakespeare

A lot of nice girls here. Had to sit next to this fat fuck named Patrick because we had English classes together last year. Hilarious professor. Naturally charismatic. Ran into Richard Burley. He called me Max. Hurm.

Mass Media

Really boring introduction. The guy rambled on FORever. I’m going to give him a mulligan on this one. Had an encounter with an old acquaintance. More on this in a bit.

American Literature 1880-1960

*Yawn* This is the second of my three hour lectures along with Shakespeare. I may have made a mistake. I was battling sleep the whole time, but it could be that I’ve just been burnt out from being at school from 9AM to 9PM on both Monday and Wednesday. Not much to say about this class yet.

*****

I ran into Caroline Walker today. I think Gary knows her the best out of the lot of us. She’s a small, cute, funny, intelligent girl who’s a year younger. I hung out with her a few times in high school. I wouldn’t say we were buds, but she was always alright in my book. I thought I saw her enter the class at the beginning, but because UofT has turned me into an anti-social xenophobe…correction, EVEN MORE of an anti-social xenophobe, I didn’t want to risk saying “hi” to her. If it wasn’t her I would have felt like the biggest moron. Well, it was her and I still ended up feeling like a moron. She followed me out after class and came up to me and asked if I was “Alex from Markham”. And I was, like, “Caroline!” At least…I think that’s what I said. There’s a distinct, DISTINCT, possibility that I called her Catherine. If so, she either didn’t notice or was nice enough to not call me on it. We played “getting to know you” while I walked her to Museum station. Apparently she’s been at Guelph the last couple of years, which relieved me of having to feel bad about not keeping in touch. She told me that her cell phone got stolen and I said, “Welcome back to Toronto.” We’re going to do something soon.

*****

My one regret about the summer was that I didn’t hang out with Michelle enough. I’m not sure that we did a single thing together, just the two of us. We met at parties and stuff, but I’m usually exerting a lot of effort not to strangle everyone else in our group so that doesn’t really count. Today, we walked around the city looking for food and books. We talked and talked and talked. This is pretty much how I’m going to be spending my three to five hour breaks on Monday and Wednesday. Buying books, exploring downtown and talking to her. At least I hope that’s how it goes. She said that her and I should go to Europe together. *sigh* If only.

You know what’s amazing about a friend like Michelle? I mean, I thought about it today. Often, when I’m with a university friend I find myself struggling to find things to talk about. You know how it is when you don’t have chemistry with someone. Your mind goes blank. With her, everything is perfect. The beats of the conversation are just right. Like when you’re watching a well-scripted movie and the dialogue is so smooth. That’s what we’re like. Even better, I find myself with a surplus of conversation topics after we’re done. And damn it, she gets me. Every stupid little thing I feel like talking about she listens to. And she’s never afraid of doing the same for me! I missed her so much.

Having said that, it’ll be a miracle if we don’t get sick of each other by December.

This whole situation…it’s horrible…

It came true. You’re lookin’ at it. Now c’mon…let’s really put these jokers through some changes.