The hip hap

In my defense, my lack of blogging can be directly blamed on my lack of time. Before quitting the doughnut shop, I was working literally seven days a week. The good ol’ days of blogging happened back when I had no job, no real worries about school, and an abundance of time. I am amazed that people with full time jobs ever find the time to jot down their thoughts.

So, what’s the scuttle bud (other than that obscure Office reference)? I am playing piano…a lot. I went on a poker spree for a few weeks and was able to afford a Yamaha CP-33 plus a stand. The keyboard is brand new at $1200 online. The specific one I got was brand new but got a one inch scratch during shipping to the store I bought it from, making it $800. Since moving out of my parents house I have become a bit of a piano scavenger until this purchase. The keyboard was shipped way too well. It was surrounded by 3” thick plastic armor bubble wrap and submerged into a box with thousands of packing peanuts. After trying to delicately and slowly take the packing peanuts out and put them into a trash bag, I got impatient and dumped them all on the floor. It took me about forty-five minutes to clean the mess up. There is still evidence of that evening on my floor. I have a new fascination with jazz. The library has a thirteen volume DVD series on the history of jazz at the library that I have slowly been making my way through. NPR plays jazz at night, adding more to my new pretentious taste in music. Playing jazz is a not easy for somebody whose fingers are unfamiliar with it. Fundamentally, everything is different. It’s based on the blues scales. A C scale on the pervasive scale is played much differently than a C scale on the blues. “C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C” compared to “C, Eb, F, F#, G, Bb, C”. My piano teacher is very much a classical pianist, adding to the challenge. Still, I am learning.

I reread The Perks of Being a Wallflower for the third or fourth time. Something about reading it in the fall makes me nostalgic for experiences I have never experienced. I am going to be reading The Bell Jar next and then call it quits on fiction for a while. Non-fiction books are where its really at for me. Other than assigned reading, I didn’t really start reading fiction for fun until my sophomore year in college. The only reason I did that was to impress a girl, basically, and have common ground with conversation (I failed in the long run…oops!).

Classes are going surprisingly well this semester. My hardest class in an upper level class on the civil war and reconstruction with Dr. Clampitt. It is also the class I have learned the most in and enjoy the most. I have great attendance in the class and will likely come out with the hardest-fought A I have ever earned while in college. I have read so much for that class. It’s worth it though. For Dr. Cowger’s contemporary American history class, I read a 400 page book in a single night/morning. I started it at about three thirty in the morning and had a test over it at eleven. I had to skip my dance class in order to get it finished. I somehow remember very clearly the details of that book. As Murphy intended, the test was ridiculously easy. The book was an autobiography of a woman named Ann Moody, a black girl who grew up in the south during the 40’s and 50’s. The question for the book was, “what was life like for African Americans in the South during the time of this book?” Having passed fifth grade history, I could have answered that question without reading the book. Other than becoming the handicapped lord of the dance, all of my other classes are pretty dull. I did my hours this morning I realized I have almost enough hours in sociology for two degrees in that nonsense. I need fifteen hours of required classes (intro, social problems, stats, methods, theory) and fifteen hours of general sociology classes. I will have twenty seven hours of general sociology classes at the end of this semester. I should probably have kept up with this better. I would definitely been out of here by now.

The new car smell is finally wearing off of my job at the library. Make no mistake about it, the library itself smells like a combination of cigarettes and shame. I have to shelf the busiest sections in the library. This takes up a large portion of my shift on short days. I have become extremely efficient at doing it, however. Some days are better than others. My coworkers are wonderful to be around, most days. We get along really well and seem to have a natural “work rapport”. We all like to do certain things, or at least don’t mind doing certain tasks as much as others. I hate with a passion easy binding books. Fortunately, Durby has pretty much marked that as her territory. Just one example. Personally, I like all of the people I work with. I liked the doughnut shop partially because of how much I didn’t have to talk to my coworkers. Part of the reason was simply because we had so little in common. All of the part-time workers are college-age. I have to admit that it would be easy for working at the library to become an excuse to hang out with people whose company I enjoy. Fortunately I haven’t been too distracted.

The more and more I think about it, the more I love the idea of moving to Colorado after graduation. I do not want to go to graduate school for a while. Ideally, I would get a decent full-time job in Colorado Springs and go part-time once I have an established residence. This would mean I would not have to pay for out-of-state tuition. If I never go to graduate school, my hear will not be broken.

Socially, things are slow for me right now. It’s actually my own choice, and I am happy. New friendships are currently being cultivated, but I am equally, and honestly, happy coming home to my piano, internet, and music, and books. On Monday nights after sociology of aging (a night class) I have a beer and free bread at Papa G’s with Caleb and Nate. I am content with that.

My Halloween costume is two-fold This is because I’m seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show Friday night with Caleb and Johnna, and I am dressing like Brad since it is probably the easiest costume to pull off. The costume I am trying to pull off for school and work is a hipster. Nothing like making fun of an entire subculture that a lot of my friends belong to as a good costume. I have Wall’s to thank for most of it. I will be wearing a shirt that says, “I Support the Draft” for subtle irony (which hipsters live for), jeans that can only be described as ugly and nothing else, trendy shoes, a brown blazer in faux suede, a green scarf a friend made me, square glasses frame, an old man hat, and a copy of some obscure book hanging out of my back pocket. One of my coworkers also suggested some sort of sign that says something to the effect of, “I thought of this costume before it was cool”

I watched The Foreigner last week…twice. It was a very well-done play. It wasn’t the type of comedy you had to force yourself to laugh at; it was naturally funny on its own.