Sundry Friday Items

Someone linked this to me, so I'm passing it on because it's pretty good. It's a video from a comedian, Elon James, giving 13 Black Truths (it's part of a web comedy show he does, called This Week in Blackness). In the video, he brings up stuff like ignorant people saying "you don't talk like a Black person!" And the accompanying short essay about his mom is great. It's not long, so if you've got a couple minutes, you should check it out.

Now I'm re-reading some of bell hooks' Killing Rage. I'm ahead of some white people (since I'm, you know, actually trying), but I still have a hell of a long way to go in reeducating myself so I won't be one of the racist, ignorant dumbasses. Also, she's badass and amazing and deserves to be re-read. Or read the first time, if you haven't. WU friends, I'm looking at you. Seriously. bell hooks and Inga Muscio - I have some of their books right here in Salem and you should read them.

In other news, Hell's own chest cold, which I contracted last Friday, is finally starting to go away. Really, I feel fine, but I'm still coughing like I have tuberculosis. Even the nasty cherry Nyquil (they were out of green flavour) I forced myself to drink last night didn't do much about it. It didn't even knock me out, I just felt woozy and light-headed when I got up to get a drink of water about an hour after going to bed. What the hell, Nyquil? You're supposed to ease up my cough and make me sleep - fail on both counts.

So I'm really sleep-deprived. I haven't slept more than four or five hours a night all week because I'm keeping myself awake coughing. I'll give the Nyquil another shot tonight, before succumbing to despair. All I want is some uninterrupted sleep. Is that really so much to ask for?

And, finally, on the school front, I'm reading Love in the Ruins, by Walker Percy, for Apocalyptic Lit, which is good in a 70s southern existentialism sort of way (it does a lot of things you're not supposed to do - first person, present tense, lack of linear structure...), and I have to go talk to Allison (seminar professor) in about a half-hour about where I might want to take my "Paradise Lost" thesis. I'm thinking I want to focus on something to do with Eve. But that will probably require my reading a bunch of Lacan, which I kind of don't want to do. The Mirror Stage and all that. This may be a bit of a Dilemma.

Oh, and I got an A on my first art history quiz, which kind of reminds me of AP Art History back in high school. I definitely got a 5 on the exam even though I barely studied and went to great lengths to do as little work as possible all year. That class was not as fun as I'd been hoping. AP Euro History was a million times better.