You know what blows my mind?

The latest game sweeping fraternities: "Gay Chicken".

The more you can make out with your bro, the more macho you are. To balk is to be a pussy.

My bowels.

For some reason I've had the worst gas the past 3 days. I feel all bloaty like I need to shit, but when I sit on the toilet, I fart forever and then finally a few small pieces of shit fly out.

Alternatively, a few times I've gone to let a fart out, but then I feel like shit's going to come out, so I go to the toilet, and there I only fart.

Also, a few times when I've shit it's all been very thick liquidy and brown, like an Ensure shake with a little more texture.

The cultural studies of karaoke.

There's this one cultural studies prof in the English Dept. who has frizzy hair and high energy and is always at events around campus, and she had a panel with a filmmaker that I went to go see, and as part of that panel she talked about karaoke scenes in working class movies, and how there's a desire to realize authenticity by performing a song like the way it was originally performed and thus becoming the object of the gaze etc.

I didn't quite get her, so I asked her at the reception afterwards to clarify, and I disagreed and told her my theory of karaoke, where there's karaoke jackasses who get up and sing in a group to be obnoxious and bond, and then there's karaoke where people think they're on Star Search and get up and belt something out, but then there's good and very moving karaoke, where people have a song they like and they sing it to share it, or they even change up the song to make it interesting, like the time my friend who can sing funk sang Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" in funk style (and I added to the prof that the best karaoke performances often involved men singing women's songs or vice-versa).

She politely pointed out that we were talking about the same thing, and that my definition of good karaoke took place against groups of people who were striving for normativity - some people to be part of the group, and some people to be like the singers they see and know.

"Never underestimate people's desire for normativity," she said.

And then I realized that all the stuff she had been saying that I was confused at wasn't jargon, but was actually incredibly precise analytical terms that had gone right over my head the first time.

A Story of my British Friend: A Prayer Book.

So this summer when he was visiting relatives in Khartoum (sp.?), my one (half British, half Sudanese) got a prayer book from one of his relatives to read, and he said he dug it out recently to read through it more because he really really likes it.

First, he said, when he was on the bus, everyone was looking at him since he was reading some book in Arabic.

Second, he said he finds a lot interesting since it's prayers for every occasion.

For example, under the section "meeting unbelievers", they suggest that instead of saying "God be with you", you say, "May God bless you", which implies "...with conversion" but doesn't come off that way.

They also have a lot of magical stuff, like what prayer to say if you hear a cock crow at night and you fear the invasion of evil spirits.

He said that he told his sister about that prayer, and asked that if she woke up at night at a cock crowing, did she think it was enough if she heard the prayer, or should she wake up her husband to say the prayer too so he could protect himself.

"That's not Islam," she was like. "That's rubbish."

"Oh no!", he was like, "I quite like it."

Like mother like son.

I was telling my mom how I have everything arranged the night before so I can roll out of bed and get going in the morning.

It turns out that she's the same way!

She told me that she has her clothes layed out and her stuff packed up and coffee in the coffeemaker and a peeled egg in the fridge, so she can just get up and not waste much time around the house and go.

Eccentricity.

So on Thursday I stayed out late barhopping then seeing a friend's band then more barhopping, which sucked since I had an 8am Hebrew quiz on Friday (like I do every Friday).

So, after less than 3 hours of sleep, I went in and took my quiz (I kind of blanked at the letters at first and couldn't read them, but it turned out all right).

Then, I went deep in the stacks of the main library, pulled out a sleep mask, and slumped over a table and slept in till 1pm.

I had dreams of undergrads congregating around me and talking, and someone sitting next to me and setting up a laptop and me barking at her and telling that I was trying to sleep.

It was only when I woke up that I realized that that was all in my dream, and the space I had envisioned that in was nothing like the space where I had gone to sleep.

Morning Routine.

To maximize sleep before my 8am class, I have my alarm set for 6:03am (that's about as late as i can go). The night before, too, I -

- pack my bag.
- lay out my clothes.
- pack my lunch
- put coffee in the coffee maker.
- set up bread in the toaster.
- peel a hard-boiled egg and set it in the fridge.
- set a water bottle, coffee thermos, and fork next to my bag as reminders to bring with me water, coffee, and my lunch.

. . .

Sleep.

2 downsides to my tutoring job:

1) it's social, but it's not like i'll have new social circles emerging from my job.

2) like every other weekend i have both a sat. 11am tutoring session and a sun. 12pm tutoring session, so i can't sleep in and lounge around the house.