This Week on "Scott"

Scott Hardie | February 1, 2002
So here's what I've been up to the past few days. None of it's interesting.

Class this week was good. I missed my sociology class again on Tuesday (I have got to stop sitting down at my computer before school, I lose all track of time), and on Tuesday night, the teacher passed Kelly and I in the grocery store. If she recognized me, I can't say, but she did look at me as I looked at her. I remember one teacher revealing that he never remembered his students. People would pass him in Macomb and say "Hi Professor" and he'd say "Hi" back but have no idea who they were. That's heartening. I did go to the class on Thursday and the talk turned to racial stereotypes. We got on the subject of black men being seen as criminals. One student said that he and some friends were driving into Kansas City, which he said was predominantly black, and as soon as they got to the edge of the city they all simultaneously locked their doors, when the car was doing 70 mph down the interstate.

Nonfiction class is getting better. The negative traits the teacher showed earlier are, for the most part, gone. My honesty isn't getting me any points yet. We were on the subject of whether to share our work with family. Most students said their families had become upset at things they'd said in class. I said that my own family had been upset, but I'd reminded them that everyone in the class was a stranger to me. After the class was over, I wouldn't talk to them again. End of story. The women on either side of me, including one who's been pretty nice lately, both scoffed and said "Thanks a lot."

Other two classes were good. No comments.

I saw "Waking Life" on Wednesday night with Kelly, Jackie, and a guy that Jackie's starting to see (he's named Bill I think). It was very good. But it can't be compared to other movies, because it's not the same thing. It's about a man who's trapped in a dream, and he has a series of conversations (or listens to a series of monologues) with strangers who pontificate on the nature of being. It contains no drama and virtually no non-philosophical interaction. It's a 90-minute meditation on the value of existentialism. It's also Rotoscoped, which means they filmed real actors and then animated them with a computer. See this chart of photos for examples. Weird. Eerie. Thought-provoking. Jackie didn't like the movie, because she has to think like this all the time, and wants a movie to entertain her for two hours and not make her think. But I'm the opposite. My life is boring and dull, and if I'm lucky, a movie will get me thinking for two hours.

My auctions on eBay are going very well so far. Maybe I can afford food in the near future. ;-) I'm planning to sell a few real books in the next few days, then my comic book collection.

Our trees are falling apart. There was a minor ice storm last night, enough to coat the trees in ice and snap off many branches. Kelly (sleeping) and I (typing) were both startled by the loud crash of a major branch scraping against our house and hitting the ground. I had already parked my car in a safe area, but Kelly had me go out at 2am to move her car after she ignored several warnings from me earlier in the night. There are now branches, both large and small, all over our yard.