the only one immune to falling down

today i feel: slightly sick
today i'm hearing: chelsea's declarations of war (in the form of poking)
today i'm thinking: that i miss jenny mac's crazy rehearsals. and jenny mac misses me.

I just got back from the last play readings of the semester. I reek of hippie coffeeshop. Mmm-mmm good. They went really well, I think. One of the actors whose name I won't specify's mobile went off during Michael Rose's reading. I plotted his death, but quietly. Chelsea asked me if Neal wrote the character I read specifically for me. I'm not sure how I should take that. Laramie caught me afterwards and informed me that he has 'something' for me next semester. He's not entirely sure what yet (or, if he is, he isn't telling me), but said we'd be in touch. I'm pretty much super-excited. I was worried, at the beginning of the year, that maybe this whole theatre thing wasn't such a great idea for me. That's a terrifying thought when you have no other idea of what to do with the rest of your life. But now? Now I'm feeling okay about it, at least in the department. It helps to actually, you know, socialise. With people who can get you gigs. That's a good idea.

The scene went really, really well on Friday. It felt good. Actually, it felt amazing. I don't even know what made it so amazing, but it was. There was something up there that hadn't been there before, something that made it tangible and fantastic and, a few times, I forgot that it wasn't real. That's never happened to me before. I hope it happens again. Jenny Mac hasn't told us what Segun thought, but I'm okay with that. At least for right now. Likely, I will grow antsy before long and hound her for answers. Huzzah for such things.

On the eve of my first officious week of university final exams, I find myself as apathetic to that particular occassion as I always have been. I'm bound to get ass-raped by my mathematics exam and I'll probably have to re-take the class next fall. That's a rather terrifying thought. If that happens I might try to find some complementary course at ISU over the summer to replace the grade, or maybe see if they offer it during the summer and just stay here. I don't really want to stay in Carbondale over the summer, as that's the only real time I can see Paige or Will or any of the crew. Mum would probably weep with the pain of missing me and Da would probably weep with having to live alone with my mother for an even longer period of time, but I don't know how much I'll have time for in the fall. I'm not sure where I would stay, if I did stay, but I suppose I can cross that bridge when I come to it or what have you. Get a job somewhere in Carbondale, maybe borrow the truck for the summer, work at the McLeod summer playhouse. It wouldn't be too bad, I suppose. I'd still get to do Jubilee. Ponders.

Tony's right. Black cherry vanilla coke, despite the lengthy name, is pretty good. Not quite as amazing as regular vanilla coke, but a worthy and less-expensive substitute.

I'm trying to convince myself to multi-task a bit more efficiently and work on my speech notes in preparation for Tuesday's exam. I should also try to look at this paper and figure out why it sucks as much as my teacher says it does. It should be easier, now that I'm not as loopy and post-hijinked as I was this morning, but I really don't want to. And, yes, post-hijinked is a word. It's hobbitese. Spoken in the darker recesses of the world. Where everyone is short. Like me. And rambles a lot.

Chelsea's making a very valiant effort to read her entire astronomy book in one day. She's actually making really great progress. This is because she's a good student. I wonder what that's like.

I've always been rather curious as to why so many educational institutions insist on courses that are completely pointless. And I don't mean pointless as in Ancient Roman government or...I don't know. Victorian literature or something like that. I mean zip+4 codes and their compatriots. Things that you will never see, things that will never make you a whole person. And maybe I'm just frustrated because the one class that's supposed to be 'easy' is the class I'm struggling in most and maybe I'm just bitter because the system fucks so many people over: people that are bright and brilliant and just need a bit of a chance. That's always possible. But I just don't understand why the things we 'have to learn' are things that don't matter, things that even the teachers say don't matter. Why teach it to us if it doesn't matter? I know on a philosophical level everything matters, just as nothing matters. But zip+4 codes don't tell me anything about life. They don't tell me what to think when I find out my da's in the hospital or how to mend my best friend's broken heart or what I should do when the kid who's been telling my roommate she makes him want to kill himself has a panic attack on the floor of my dorm room. They don't tell me how to make things better or how to keep them from getting worse. They don't tell me if I should risk something concrete and simple just because I'm 'certain' of something else that's so much more abstract. They don't tell me if it's actually abstract after all. Or if I'm actually certain.

Tangents will not save you from contrived academic pursuits. That's the true lesson we should be educated on.