No Introduction Necessary

DAILY RICE: OCTOBER SOMETHING, 2004 11am

Well, well. Where to begin? Obviously, I'm new to this whole super cool "online journal" business so I'll just jump right in. (1) I suppose the most logical thing to talk about first is school, since I am supposedly a student. Of course, Sartre would call this "bad faith", but that is neither here nor there, but for those of you philosophers out there don't mistake my laziness for ignorance. Simply put, I am first and foremost, at this point in my life, a student.
First, I'd like to say I have given a name to my pain, and it is the "espanol problema". Since I will request my Spanish teacher to read this and I know her time is valuable, I'll start here. (Not to say yours isn't :) Anywho, this class is incredibly dificil, and I find myself troubled by it. I'd be lying if I said it didn't keep me up at night, with random adjectives and demonstrative nouns jumping fences in my head. Luckily, our teacher has a good sense of humor and pleasant demeanor so she is not too hard on me. But ultimately all I can say about all that is yowsa (there is just not a word in either language that can more aptly describe how that class makes me feel, at least one that is printable on an online journal) ((sorry for the random spanish adjectives, but I only know a few and don't want them going to waste)
As for the other classes, which all fall under the umbrealla topic of Anthro, or Anthropology for non-anthro majors, they are going great. I feel I have really found a natural home studying anthropology and couldn't be enjoying the subect matter more. My classes are:
Cultural Anthropology
People, Cultures, and Topography of Africa
Magic, Ritual and Religion
Culture through Film
They are all more or less equally engaging. Anthropology is a unique field of study in that it is holistic and comparative but most importantly it is just mind boggling. It gives you this view of the world that you just never even dreamed existed. And the more you learn about all the peoples and cultures of the world, the more you are reminded of how ignorant you really are to what is happening out there. Outside of the bubble. Not to complain though... This is a great bubble.
So those were the cliff notes on Fall semester 2004 and I'll leave it at that. What else? Hmmm. I do have a certain friend and I won't mention his name (DAN!) ((sorry)) who needs to get on the ball. More on that later.
I was thinking about how difficult it is to say something truly original. I'll limit this idea entirely to speech and linguistics. Take any sentence you say in any given day... Have you ever considered that there are probably hundreds of people saying the exact same thing at the exact same moment. And if you widen the alloted time frame to a 24 hour day, it becomes nearly impossible to state a truly original sentence or idea. Now widen 24 hours to the entire amount of time mankind has been speaking. Could it be that we have never said an original sentence in our entire lives??!! Now I know what you're thinking-you're thinking, but Michael, don't you realize that the tone, pitch, dialect, accent, etc. are the things that make your comment unique? Sure, sure, but I'm talking about content matter specifically. It's kind of defeating to think about. Maybe you can make up a truly bizzare sentence and assuming it follows the laws of grammar and has quasi-proper syntax you don't stand a chance. Go ahead. Try it. I know you want to.
Alright, my music pick for the day is Jeff Buckley's Last Goodbye...
"one more kiss and then I'll go,
you've given me for to live for than you'll ever know." (Grace, 1994)
and random quote is:
There was never a time when you, nor I,
Nor these kings did not exist (Krishna)
That seems like rather appropriate with the political scene heating up. I would never use this journal as a soapbox or vehicle to push my political views though. CHENEY/BUSH 2004 (yes, in this order-put Cheney in charge!). Oh, that next to last sentence starts NOW.
Hope this was interesting, and if not that, at least readable. I'll write more later so until then, I remain,
Michael (from the online journal)
Footnotes
(1) I have to say that I fully understand and agree with the idea that an online jounal about yourself is arrogant, conceited, egotistical, and borderline pretentious. I also realize I may incorrectly spell words (see previous sentence). But, heres why I'm gonna give it a go: sometimes, I write a few emails a day saying the same thing or sharing the same little anecdote. I've realized that with each successive retelling of the same thing the story gets more and more boring and I put less and less heart into it. So this way, the news and gossip and thoughts can be presented in a more pure and animated form, completely undilluted but definitely filtered. So that's my moral justification for writing about me and only me. I'm only kidding!!!