It was hard to get up this morning. Whatever excitement I had yesterday
\ndidn’t keep up with 8 a.m. Thursday. I even listened to the idiots on the
\nradio jabber, rather than exit my warm cocoon. But after a cup of coffee
\n(half of which is now in the passenger seat by way of a quick turn on the way
\nto school) and a couple of chapters of Jack London’s _Sea Wolf_ on tape, I
\nwas ready for the day. It was a beautifully cold, damp, miserable type of
\nday, the day that automatically puts me in a good mood. I even greeted
\npeople I knew far too cheerfully as I walked all the way across campus after
\nparking near the trailers and then remembering my first class was in the
\nlibrary. Paul had an empty seat next to him around the round table type
\nclassroom, so I plopped my bookbag down. He made some comment about
\nunfortunately not having much say on where I sat, but I knew he didn’t mind.<\/p>\n
Karen came in to Hermeneutics later, so that, as she pointed out afterward,
\nwe were the only two girls in the class. “Let’s argue the rabid feminist
\nstance!” she urged as she, Paul, Mashburn, and I sat around after everyone
\nelse had left. “God is a She!” I exclaimed. “Whether we believe it or not,”
\nshe went on, “we’ll tick them off!”<\/p>\n
Walking over to the other building for Karen to get her caffeine fix from a
\ncoke machine, I told her about the “American Myth” reading club\/directed
\nstudy Allums and Schaefer and Mashburn are doing with us. “I want to!” she
\nexclaimed, “Can I?” “Ask Paul,” I shrugged. “I have no say in this,” Paul
\nkept insisting. “So can I come?” “Yes,” I finally decreed, “You can come.”
\n“So what happened to Bitter Greg?” asked Karen. She and Maynard made up
\nnames for all the people in God and Suffering last semester. There was
\n“Genius Paul,” “Jonah,” “Fat Religion Guy in the Back.” But none of us had
\nseen Greg. “I don’t even know if he’s coming back,” I said, “He was tired
\nwith school.” “He was tired with school,” agreed Mashburn, nodding sadly,
\n“He needs to be in an environment where he can say whatever he wants.”<\/p>\n
I didn’t have anything to do for the next couple hours, so I accompanied Paul
\nto his Old Testament class. “I’m not in this class,” I said to Dr. Berry as
\nwe entered the room late and he handed Paul a syllabus. “I beg to differ,”
\nhe retorted, “You ARE in this classroom.” There wasn’t much to it, like all
\nother classes yesterday and today, just collecting and scanning syllabi.<\/p>\n
Paul debated afterward whether to eat or buy books in the time left before
\nhis next class at one. Like any good student, he chose the bookstore.
\n Rounding a corner in the lobby of Weaver, who should we see but… “Greg!”
\nwe both shouted, each taking a hand and shaking it warmly. The recipient of
\nour attention shrugged, smiled slightly, and began philosophizing in his
\nKentucky speed of speech. “I have to register,” he said, “What should I put
\nfor my major? ‘Cause it don’t matter what I put, it’ll be somethin’
\ndifferent on my diploma.” “Philosophy,” I said. “No, I was thinkin’ bout
\nsomethin’ obscure that NO ONE would pick. Like fish harvesting in
\nNicaragua.” That is, incidently, a real class offered at the Nicaraguan
\ncampus. “What should I take?” he asked me. I flipped through my catalog and
\npointed out things he might like, Con Law, Presidency and Congress, Russian
\nLit, Hebrew Bible Thought. “Photography,” he said, “I wanna major in that.”
\n “You could take ceramics,” I suggested. “Ceramics?” “Yeah, make pots and
\nstuff. I’m in there.” “You’re taking it?” he laughed, “That’d be fun.”
\n Paul still had to buy books, so he left. Greg said he’d come to the
\nconclusion that nothing mattered. “But, you’re here,” I pointed at Weaver’s
\ntile floor.<\/p>\n
I told him I’d started C.S. Lewis’ _The Great Divorce_. Greg said he’d
\nfinished Camus’ _The Stranger_ over break, “I liked the guy. I wanted him to
\ndie. But I wanted him to accept death, deal with it.” “I thought he
\ndeserved to die, even though he wasn’t evil.” “No passion.” “That’s it! He
\ndidn’t have any passion. He didn’t love anything. Lust and annoyance,
\nthat’s all. And that’s what he died with, lust for life.” “Yeah! But,
\nthat’s all life IS!” “Then what’s it matter?” I asked him. “What DOES
\nmatter?” he asked, “What’s one thing that matters?” I was halfway out the
\ndoor, on my way to class, “It’s about love. In a cosmic sense.”<\/p>\n
We ran into Karen coming in as we went out. That waylaid my advance to class
\neven more. Though almost all of the same people who were in Presidency and
\nCongress were also in Constitutional Law, they’d left the front of the room
\nvacant. I sat in the front, just left of the middle, seat, in front of
\nMelissa Lindquist, who was in turn in front of Tracy. The classroom was very
\nquiet, but then the three of us started talking about stuff. Schaefer ran
\nstraight into lecturing, talking about the Articles of Confederation and
\nsaying our first Supreme Court brief was due on Tuesday. Afterward, Tracy
\nasked me if was auditioning today. “Today? I guess so.” “Auditions are
\nopen this time,” she said, “The thing is that so many of the majors aren’t
\ngoing to be available for The Doctor in Spite of Himself. So we’re desperate
\nfor actors.”<\/p>\n
So I showed up in the theater room after getting my syllabus from Ceramics.
\n Mrs. Kellum had us do a bunch of warm up exercises and then do things like
\nsay, “My name is , and I am not happy about it,” making a
\nmovement with our bodies each time we said a syllable and other
\nnon-script-reading activities. Then Stephen and Sherrea, who are directing
\n_Ladies of the Camilias_, had guys and girls read different parts to that play.
\n I was pretty happy with mine. My “guy” was Maynard, who is incredibly
\ntalented. I dunno if I’ll get a part or not. There are three plays they’re
\nputting on this semester all together, so I at least have a shot. But if
\nnot, I’m sure I can use the extra free time! Like I have any anymore.
\nFinally got home around 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was hard to get up this morning. Whatever excitement I had yesterday didn’t keep up with 8 a.m. Thursday. I even listened to the idiots on the radio jabber, rather than exit my warm cocoon. But after a cup of coffee (half of which is now in the passenger seat by way of a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonclassified-nonsense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}