So this week I started another course and I was pretty excited about it. The subject sounds interesting and it's definitely something I want to know more about. In a sense a regret from my previous college that we barely touched on it. But in fact, I'm rarely this excited about starting a new course, so I wanted to take the opportunity to get right into it. The course website lists a total of 17 books, one of which is the textbook, 4 of which are locked up in a special room and not-for-loan and 2 are in Dutch. That still leaves 10 books that are supposed to be in the library, not bad. I never do this, but I thought that for once I would do some extra reading aside from what is assigned, just to satisfy my own curiosity on the subject.

So I print the list and head down to the library. The building has seen some major reconstruction the last few months and they library has just reopened, which shows. The book shelves look normal, but the reception area is a bit of a mess. I get stuck behind some person trying to borrow an overhead projector, which easily takes 15 minutes of chit chat, interrupted by phone calls to the reception desk, trying to find stuff and figure out how to do that. When it's finally my turn, the distressed librarian, with a hint of impatience, tells me I don't have to ask at the reception desk, I can look the book up myself. So she walks over to one of the computers, marked "staff only" and moves the mouse. The screen remains black, even though the machine is on. Beside the linux machine is a Windows box, also marked "staff only". She moves the mouse, a login window appears. She logs in and waits. After about 30 seconds of the login still being processed, she turns back and looks it up on her own computer at her desk. The book I'm after turns out.... not to be in the library. In between more phone calls to the reception desk. I ask if there's a web interface for this and apparently there is. The whole process of trying to find this one book took about 40 minutes and accomplished nothing.

When I finally found the web interface for the library, it turns out only 3 of the 10 books are actually in the library. They can be ordered online, but again I couldn't log into the library system, it's not accepting my password. :lazy:

Btw, what is with those not-for-loan books? It's like visiting a prisoner in jail. It's not even that much of a problem when the library is a big building and you just can't take the book out. But in my building there's a little room where all of these books and and it's locked, possibly open by appointment only. It's like a doctor's waiting room. Who would sit in that little room for hours on end reading a book of hundreds of pages? And you won't be done in a day, you'll have to keep coming back, like a doctor visiting his patients.

Last time I went up, I forgot my pencil case coming back and so right now I'm rather low on stationary. Not that I use it much, I so rarely write by hand anymore. But for school it's nice to have the most basic supplies just to take a few notes or what have you. So I made a special point of taking a 40 minute detour coming home from school via the city center to stop by the biggest bookstore in town. How the hell does a bookstore not sell stationary?!? :wth: It's bizzarre. In Norway bookstores are the place to go for all kinds of paper goods. They sell books, magazines, all kinds of stationary, wrapping paper, organizers, office supplies, greeting cards, even movies if they're one of the bigger ones. But here, not a single pencil. So I go to two _stationary stores_ and walk out with nothing there either. The stationary here is seriously crap.

Norway has a fairly rich stationary culture, kids get all excited about new pens and stuff for school, there's a wide selection and they usually have what you want. Over here, meanwhile, the closest thing I found today was a selection of fancy pens, which is just the furthest away from regular stationary. Those expensive pens belong on the list of the most useless articles in retail. First of all, what kind of sucker will buy a fancy, expensive pen and expect it to last forever? Secondly, they're usually less good for writing than the regular pens (because they're 'designer' pens, focusing on the look not the function). A fancy pen is the kind of thing you get your dad for his birthday when you're completely out of ideas. Then you pick up a Hallmark card and say "happy birthday, dad! I hope you like this paperweight pen." You have to write that, otherwise he's gonna wonder who lost the pen that somehow found itself into his gift by accident.

I've never liked cooking and home ec was my least favorite class in school, probably of all time. So I don't make much of an effort, but every once in a while you want to do something more interesting or make an effort just for the sake of eating healthy. I'm very far from being one of those health crazed people and I couldn't make myself eat for some long term goal. But after a decade of coincidental and unhealthy eating, I'm migrating towards eating in a way that promotes short term well being. I'm just not excited about food, so why not just eat whatever makes me feel good, right? While I haven't exactly knocked out a firm diet for this yet, the idea is just to eat food that doesn't get in the way of anything that I do. Obviously, overeating does that, large amounts of trash food does it too etc. I'd also like something that promotes good sleep, or I wouldn't be writing this at 5.30 in the morning. The lack of good sleep is very annoying, but it might be more of a mental problem for all I know.

Anyway, back to making the occasional effort. What bugs me about recipes is that they have to be so complicated. Half the ingredients on the list I've never even seen in the store, I've no idea what they look like and it's just a wild goose chase. A few years ago someone gave me cookbook of a 1000 Chinese recipes, and I tried a bunch of them. Hunting down the ingredients (after translating them from Polish) took a long time, and not really knowing what I was doing in the kitchen made some of those efforts come out weird. But there were some success stories as well. Still, doing one recipe was a big commitment, it took rigorous shopping and implementation of the recipe. It wasn't exactly a lot of fun, even though the food was good in the end.

Now, I can understand that adding a quarter of a teaspoon of something slightly enhances the flavor, but they really make it hard to cook these dishes. Meanwhile, if you go simple and cut everything that seems like an accessory, it ends up tasting very... plain. Good thing my home ec teacher isn't reading this (or is she?).

They

• laugh at stupid jokes, accepting a low standard of conversation.
• tell stupid jokes.
• are slow to catch on to things that are being said, and once they do they don't just keep quiet, they say 'oooooh' every two minutes.
• ask you to repeat what you said. Again. (A keen observer would realize that they're not getting this particular point and just let it go.)
• understand about 30% of what you said, but insist on having the remainder explained in every little detail.
• hang on to some little expression you used and when you explain it in different words [to give an equivalent statement], they still make you explain the expression.
• constantly mix languages in a conversation for no reason (because they need/want an expression they often use).
• switch languages in a conversation for no reason.
• make what they think is a witty comment that makes no sense at all to the context and when called on it insist that 'it was a joke, lighten up'. [this one seems to proliferate lately]
• try to make you laugh and when failing accuse you of not having a sense of humor.
• are so loud you can't not hear them in the other room if you try.
• engage you in conversations about the most pointless issues.
• have their own 'signature expressions' that they insist on using in just about every sentence.
• use common expressions, incorrectly.
• completely dominate conversations, even those involving a group of people.

When I was in junior high, we had a class called Music. This was a two year run. First year classical music (a little dry, but mostly fun), second year "the history of rock" (snore). Now I'm not saying this was an important class or a particularly exciting one, it was just a run of the mill "it's in the syllabus so we're doing it" class. The classical music part was appreciated by pretty much only me, whereas year two found greater support in our class, although I thought it was a snoozefest (Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Doors, The Sex Pistols, how fascinating, it's the 90s, jackass!).

Now, I know that sounds like a generic "when I was young" rant, but stay with me here. The point is that we covered a bit of classical music in some detail. Why does this matter? It's a bit like asking "why do we have to learn math, I'm never gonna use this for anything". Until you decide to buy a car, and get a financing plan on that. And the interest is screwing you, because you never learnt to calculate compound interest. Now, math has a lot more applicability than music education. But if you only take one thing from Music, let it be this. It's not called a friggin' "song".

Let's say you're at da mall with dem homies and for a strange, unexplained reason, they're playing classical music in the clothing store, just as you're picking out a suit for your imminent court appearance. Now, aside from looking like a douche for not having a clue what you're talking about, you want to express your dissatisfaction with the music, so you remark to your boy (let's call him Homeboy #1) "yo dis fruity song is wack, yo" (do ghangstaz use commas?). IT'S NOT. "A SONG". !.

Do you hear someone singing? No? Then it's not a song. Let's look it up, shall we?

song  /sɔŋ, sɒŋ/ – noun
1. a short metrical composition intended or adapted for singing, esp. one in rhymed stanzas; a lyric; a ballad.
2. a musical piece adapted for singing or simulating a piece to be sung: Mendelssohn's “Songs without Words.”
3. poetical composition; poetry.
4. the art or act of singing; vocal music.
6. an elaborate vocal signal produced by an animal, as the distinctive sounds produced by certain birds, frogs, etc., in a courtship or territorial display.

Aside from definition number three, which doesn't seem applicable, every single definition is very clear on the singing part. Definition number six is a little far fetched to our context, but even that clearly states that it's a vocal sound. I've left out definition number five for emphasis, as I think it captures this whole thing most clearly and succinctly.

5. something that is sung.

Clear? The reason people call it a song, is

1. They don't know that there is such a thing as music that is "not a song".
2. Or even if they do, they don't know what to call "that".

Let's start with the most hip and least descriptive word: tune. If you don't know what to call it, you can always call it a tune. I can't think of a case where that would be incorrect. For the more demanding customer, there are words like piece, composition, work, and depending on the context, theme. Finally, if you want to appear smart and cultured to people you just met, call it an opus. Beyond the generics, there's a vast nomenclature for works of music specific to the work's form.

Don't be a douche, don't call it "a song". [Can we get t-shirts printed?]