bad metaphor

When talking with Kristen not too long ago, it finally came out that I don’t like Christmas music. In fact, I hate it. Cheesy music is always bad, but it always seems to get even worse around Christmas-time – probably because I hear it everywhere. I can avoid lame oldies music on the radio by not listening to the station, but I can’t avoid “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” when I’m at a store, because it’s playing at all of them.

I don’t know why Christmas music gets me in particular. I think it’s just the overall fake cheeriness of it – everyone’s happy, la la la, go spend more money and ignore all the crises in the less fortunate areas of the world. Whenever I hear a Christmas song, it reminds me of walking into a retirement home. The walls are painted pink and covered with cheerful paintings of flowers, yet everywhere you look there are old people staring off into space and drooling – the grim spectre of death. Perhaps I have a more extreme reaction than most, but hey, I’m sure I’m not the only grinch out there.

I do have to make a distinction between traditional Christmas music, though, like “Carol of the Bells” or “Silent Night” – I don’t mind that type of Christmas music, because it actually has some significance and musical aesthetic. I’m talking about “Jingle Bells,” “Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer,” and other aural tragedies. If I never have to hear “Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock” sung in midi format by a dancing Elvis santa again, I will deem it the best Christmas present I will have ever received.

Now, my dislike of Christmas muzak is a carefully guarded secret that I’ve harbored from my roommates for the past three years of living with them. I guess Beth isn’t so bad about it, but Kristen treats Christmas like a sacred rite instead of a commercially manufactured holiday designed to make people feel bad about not spending money, a la “if you really loved your kids, you’d buy them mini-iPods. You’re telling me the present cost under $10? What a cheap scrooge!” Every year after Thanksgiving, Kristen goes home and brings back boxes full of Christmas ornaments, videos, cds, and recipes. I don’t really mind that much and just try to ignore it – I disappear into my room whenever she blasts the Christmas music, and I don’t watch the videos.

It’s gotten bad, though, since my scroogeness has been exposed. They’ve made it their mission to convert me to Christmasism (not to be confused with actual Christianity, mind you). Immediately both roommates were like, “you don’t like any Christmas music? But what about Mannheim Steamroller?!” Ugh. They sat me down the other night to watch “Holiday Inn,” a holiday-themed movie featuring Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby. Basically the whole movie was about Fred Astaire trying to steal Bing Crosby’s girlfriends, and Bing Crosby being a big wuss about it all. Ho hum. The highlight of the movie was when Bing Crosby tries to hide his latest girlfriend from Fred Astaire by disguising her in blackface. Sigh. I guess I couldn’t help but see something a little sinister behind “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” which this particular movie launched into popularity with the effect of irritating me each December. Thanks, roomies, I’ve suddenly changed my mind about Christmas music now!

Kristen then reasoned that since I don’t like cheery Christmas music, I will naturally like all Christmas parodies. She then ran upstairs to bring down some things from her CD collection, and then proceeded to play me a bunch of parody Christmas songs by Weird Al Yankovic. AHHHH! I told you I didn’t like cheesy Christmas music, what makes you think I’ll like music that intentionally tries to be annoying? Weird Al was funny back in middle school, but does that really justify buying one of his CDs and actually listening to the whole thing? More than once? Gahhh…I don’t understand people.

She seems to have gotten more sensitive about Christmas nostalgia, also – I guess you can’t do anything not Christmas related during the month of December! The other day the boy and I were talking about our plans to have an Evil Dead marathon movie night, and Kristen overheard and said “You can’t watch horror movies – it’s Christmas time!” I’m sorry, I didn’t get that memo. All zombies must take sick leave in December. After New Year’s, though, it’s back to eating brains and terrorizing the living!

I guess part of the reason why we see Christmas so differently is that it didn’t seem to be as big of a deal when I was growing up. We didn’t really have any set rituals, other than putting up the tree and getting presents – but my dad was usually the one who put up the tree and decorated, because we kids were kind of lazy. Also, the nostalgia of presents kind of wore off back in high school, when my parents started giving me money instead of presents. Which was good, because then I could choose a present that I actually liked, but also kind of sad because it took all the fun out of being surprised. Whereas in Kristen’s house, I guess they related to each other through things like holiday traditions and movies – the only time her family hung out was when decorating the house, or watching a movie together in the living room. That always struck me as weird, but hey, I guess whatever works for your family.

Although I can’t say I’m dreaming of a white (brown-people-free) christmas, I have to admit that it is a little depressing that there isn’t snow on the ground yet. Apart from a couple of days of snow that quickly melted, it’s been pretty dry here. I figure if it’s going to be miserably cold, it might as well be pretty. There’s global warming for you.

Another email in my inbox from Belle:

“Yet another story for your comic enjoyment. So, last week Jodie was interogating me about the letter again. She was pissed that you were “trying to represent the students, faculty, and other staff members” with your opinions in your comment about the office being a shitty place, and that being the reason why no one comes here.

Anyway, so I said that in having to re-organize all of the emails and g-drive, you came across a lot of letters from and to faculty with whom she was having problems with over one thing or another. As I was telling her that those were pretty strong evidence that she didn’t really get along with anyone, she said “Well, ya. Everyone in this program has been bitch slapped by me at some point or another. If they’re going to try to step on my toes, or especially a student’s toes, of course they’re going to hear it from me.” (note: her face got very red, she was all over the place, and her voice had that crazy undertone to it…you know the one). She was trying to justify her horrible communication skills and relationships with the faculty by saying that they try to screw with students! I’m sorry, but I’ve never heard of such a case. She always blows stuff out of proportion, and she is usually at fault in the first place.

Anyway, later that week she said out of the blue “I think a lot of good has come out of karenology’s letter. I’m really trying to work on a lot of things.” YA RIGHT. Also, she might be moving to the front desk permanently. That way she can scare all the students away right when they walk in. He he he he. Less traffic for me.”

Oh my god…I mean…ahahahaha!

I had mentioned in an earlier post a paper I had to do in social psychology about a movie. The movie I chose was “American History X”; I had scanned the list of movies, saw the title on there, and decided that this is the movie I wanted to write about. Although, as I mentioned earlier, it’s a pretty difficult movie to watch, especially compared to the other movies listed, like “Shrek 2″ and “Mean Girls.” And again, I highly recommend seeing it.

Anyway, I typed about half of the paper last night before I looked at the prompt to make sure I was satisfying all of the requirements. I happened to glance at the movie list – and it was gone. “American History X” was not on there. I thought, what? and refreshed the page a couple of times (just in case, you know, the page hadn’t loaded one line of text ). Nope. I didn’t know what to do at that point, so I figured I could just go into class and ask the prof if it was okay. It is a really good movie, and it’s pretty pertinent to the racial stereotyping part of the course, right?

I waited until this morning and asked her at the beginning of class. She responded by saying that the reason why she didn’t have “American History X” on the list was because it had been on a prompt for the previous semester’s class, and that she was worried about problems with cheating. She said she had been aware of internet sites to help people cheat, as well as the whole frat/sorority circle-jerk system of helping each other not actually learn anything in school (my words, not hers). Yikes. It hadn’t really occurred to me at this point that I could be suspected of cheating, and I swore up and down that I would never cheat on a paper. (Okay, maybe I did cheat -once- on a math exam, but the prof wasn’t even in the room during the exam and he never taught us anything anyways because he was too busy hitting blunts. But I’m innocent this time!)

She deliberated and said she would take the paper, but I left feeling – I don’t know. Guilty isn’t the right word, because I didn’t cheat (really! I’m not in a sorority and I value my education! Ask my English professors!). I felt crummy for most of the day, though, because it really does kind of look like I cheated. I mean, why would I have mistakenly done a paper on a prompt from a previous semester’s course? Isn’t that a little convenient? If I were the prof., I would be like, “yeah right. Uh, you fail at cheating, buddy. F+!”

I am supremely grateful that I have a nice, understanding professor.

What else happened today? I decided not to take the job – sheer laziness won out, although I’d like to think that the decision was motivated more by my need to concentrate on schoolwork next semester (ha. yeah right). This way, I can devote more time to the SUA, the ECM, the insert-acronym-here of other student groups I’ll be suckered into joining, as well as knitting, practicing the guitar, and all the other hobbies I have listed in my profile that I didn’t have time to do this semester. Oh, and last but not least, blogging.

I made the slight mistake of taking a nap before I went in for my job interview yesterday. I woke up feeling kind of groggy anyways, and I kept trying to act awake. I ran into a friend on the way there and he told me, “You don’t look so well.” Wonderful!

But I guess the interview went okay. I didn’t have the most stellar feeling about it afterwards, partially because I was still a touch out of it during the process. I did try to scan the office for signs of craziness – Carla, the woman who interviewed me, does to have a fondness for rabbits, but she only had like one rabbit painting and a couple of Beatrix Potter figurines. A breath of fresh air from the hundreds of fake flower vases in Jodie’s office.

Carla seemed very nice – maybe a tad eccentric, but nothing too off the wall. Then again, I thought that about Jodie at first. Carla, however, refrained from sharing with me any vendettas against the boss or conspiracy theories about other departments. That is a good sign. She did throw me off at the end of the interview, when she tested my typing skills by handing me a sheet of scratch paper and asking me to update a Word document according to the directions on the paper. And man, does she have bad handwriting. It’s nothing compared to my Western Civ notes (I tend to flat line during the dull lectures, of which there are several), but it is pretty bad and I was rather nervous about showing off my leet sixty wpm typing skills.

I guess I did well, though, despite the fact that I had trouble with the ergonomic keyboard (those things blow, by the way), and that I acted like I was doped up on something. I came home just a few minutes ago, and she left a message on the machine saying that I had gotten the job, and when would I like to start? Yay – I guess. I don’t know. I kind of like being unemployed. It’s nice not having to get up early and stay late on campus, and having time to waste on things like surfing the internet and blogging. I do like being able to afford food, though, as well as rent; not to mention things like fancy hats and handbags. I’m kind of a sucker for handbags, and that may prove my economic downfall. So…what to do?