I took my Hebrew midterm yesterday night. I'd forgotten my book in the office and I had to rely solely on quizzes and a few sheets of in-class work. The morning of the test, I found my book at work, right on top of the In-Tray. On it was a post-it note with Urdu writing. Maybe Mohammed or Hina meant to chastise me for my forgetfulness. I asked Karla about it and she said, "oh, we were talking about you." I waited for an explanation, but she just walked away smiling.

I walked into class later that night to find Richard peeved at me for not calling him.

So I sat next to Alex, instead. I fidgeted in my chair and asked him what the professor's midterms were like. There was a lull in the conversation, and then he leaned over and asked, "How do you say 'where' again?"

Wow. Question words were last year!

The most difficult thing about the test turned out to be the professor's handwritting. There was some confusion about the instructions, people kept having to clarify, and, fed up, she said, "You guys are so jewish!"

Slikha? Mah?

Daniel and I had a good laugh over that.

 Mohamad and I had a chance to talk, so of course he talked shit about persians. I believed evey word. He said, "To be honest with you, Gwen, nobody likes them."

The persians at school have become characters to me. They're not even real, they can't possibly be. Their hair is too shiny, their clothes too tight. They need to confront the fact that they are ludicrous, an accidental dadaism. But they're too cool for confrontation, because - God! Divooneh!

Down in Venice, I got to see Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk from FIREFLY!!!! 

but i didn't say or do anything. i was too shocked and thought, No Way.

Anyway, the point is: AAHHHHH! 

;) 

 Hebrew is over. אני לא טוב!

הר שלום hugged me goodbye. I told her how great her class was and she seemed at a loss for words and she hugged me! And it was a sincere hug, yo, she squeezed and she was like a grandma. I should have said, thank you for feeding us.

But it means I'm closer to the End of 2004.

I spent a total of 14 hours at the library downtown preparing for my history final. I was freaking out, but then I entered a sort of zen-like state. And I said to Peyman, "Me? Study history? History studies me." It makes no sense, I admit, but in my head, a million things sounds good.

History class is over and I kicked the final's ass. I wiped the floor with Vietnam! I told Prof Smith his class was really great, and he suggested I take his Mexican-American History after finding out I'm hispanic ("I think you'd really dig it"). I told him I wasn't Mexican and and he apologized for not having Guatemalan-American History. Ah, white people. Ya'll are cool.

I finally got in contact with Linda! Linda, you & I on Friday! And I met up with Nadine. She & I on Sunday! And maybe Maung, Mohammed, Juan & Hina on Saturday!

Tonight, the office staff treated us to a late lunch at El Torito. We had food, & flan. And then we exchanged gifts. I'd asked for a Hebrew, Persian, or Arabic dictionary, but I didn't think anyone was going to get anyone of those. But they did! Plus Acosta gave us all a gift certificate to McDonald's. (??? Exactly.)

I thanked Mohammed for his gift to me and he said, "What is it?" Ay, Mohammed.

And then Mr. Castillo talked, as he always does, about how we're like family and then we all said something. I said, "It takes me a while to warm up to people, but the enviornment was very welcoming." Then Ms. Friedric says, "What's your name again?" She is SO AWESOME! Everything about her says, "Don't play me, foo'." And she uses the word "jive". Ex: "UC will ask you for your transcripts and if that and what you reported on your application don't jive.." I later suggested I wear a name tag. "I was just trying to be funny. I hate mush."

She once told our boss Maria, "Don't you tell me what to do!"

Hina said - no, declared, "I shared a class with Gwen... and she's an amazing person." Because I am. L.O.L!

 "Moralists try to persuade us that the sexual instinct hasn't got so very much to do with love. They're apt to speak of it as if it were an epiphenomenon."

"What in God's name is that?"

"Well, there are psychologists who think that consciousness accompanies brain processes and is determined by them, but doesn't itself exert any influence on them. Something like the reflection of a tree in water; it couldn't exist without the tree, but it doesn't in anyway affect the tree. I think it's all stuff and nonsense to say that there can be love without passion; when people say love can endure after passion is dead they're talking of something else, affection, kindliness, community of tastes and interest, and habit. Especially habit. Two people can go on having sexual intercourse from habit in just the same way as they grow hungry at the hour they're accustomed to have their meals. Of course there can be desire without love. Desire isn't passion. Desire is the natural consequence of the sexual instinct and it isn't of any more importance than any other function of the human animal. That's why women are foolish to make song and dance if their husbands have an occasional flutter when the time and the place are propitious.
[...]
"Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction, but on impediment. What d'you suppose Keats meant when he told the lover on his Grecian urn not to grieve? 'Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!' Why? Because she was unattainable, and however madly the lover pursued she still eluded him. For they were both imprisoned in the marble of what I suspect was an indifferent work of art. Your love for Larry and his for you were as simple and natural as the love of Paolo and Francesca or Romeo and Juliet. Fortunately for you it didn't come to a bad end. You made a rich marriage and Larry roamed the world to find out what song the Sirens sang. Passion didn't enter into it.
[...]
"Passion doesn't count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honour is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Parnell and Kitty O'Shea. And if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter nortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg in which one hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum. "

The Razor's Edge - W. Somerset Maugham, p. 169-170

 The lights have been out all day at school and, I heard, some of the surrounding area. I forgot to pick up Har Shalom's mail like she asked me to, and I'm so sorry I have to disappoint my pseudo-jewish momma. However, I got to knock off work and still get paid my full hours.

I think I should smile more. Maria once said I looked very pretty when I did, but then she also told me recently that my hours would be cut next semester, so... She also seemed surprised that I make $6.75 an hour, even though she was the one that told me that was the standard rate. Maung said, "I think she likes you." Look, she used the word "contingency" to describe my employment status next semester, then raved about work-study. Do I qualify for work-study? She did work-study! It was great!

Man!

After running an erand at SMC, I sat in the car and looked up the blue sky, wondering how come we don't hear about Superman anymore. There was something wooshing through the sky, and I thought, "Wow, they're really going somewhere." It was ambitious. Because, how can you bear Not Moving? Only stand still if it's temporary, to collect yourself. Never Stay. God, the thought of it is like bile rising up in the throat.

I heard Rufus Wainright for the first time, and I found his stuff sad. He sung some depressing songs and warned, "Alright. Now I'm gonna sing another depressing song." He says he's Catholic, though he was never baptized. Hello! Wake up: Loophole! Run while you still can!

But still, I am happy. My days are shaped like hearts. Ani ohevet atem.

 Went out with Hina, Javeria, Mohammed and Maung today. Everybody was late.; while I waited, I called Nadine up to see what the hell she was up to. Life is better for her, too, though Drake is in some kind of funk. Not doing too well in math, and I don't give a fuck. He thinks I dig him, and I asked Nadine to tell him about that time I mistook him for a really ugly woman.