I DON’T WANT TO BE // A PROLOGUE TO HISTORY

A couple friends asked me how it’s been going. It’s a normal question or greeting to which the answer is either okay/not bad or something about stress. But I thought about that question today (I always greet Jody with that the few times a month when I bump into him and he pointed out it was a very loaded question – he takes longer to respond than most people do for such a greeting) and replied that everything was stable. It is. It’s not amazingly interesting but everything is okay. However, stability comes and goes and I totally know that but I’m not particulary concerned because I don’t think instability will come in the form of loneliness like it used to. Who knows, it might even be really enjoyable instability (ooer I’m so Candide). And like I said, stability’s not amazingly interesting so sometimes “goes” is all right (disclaimer: I like that it will come back too).

Not that it’s that interesting but for preservation’s sake, my impressions of this semester’s classes thus far:

→ Chinese is the same. Learning characters still feels tedious but I’m getting excited about this summer and feeling apprehensive about learning 20-40 characters per day instead of per week.

→ Modern East Asian history > pre-modern East Asian history by far (but I won’t use multiple greater-than signs because I feel it might be bad form). The professor is young and sounds stressed out all the time but is a good instructor. She guest-lectured for a class of mine last year and is probably responsible about much of my cynicism about Confucian culture and the Patriarchy in Chinese history. I also have a couple friends to sit with now from my Chinese class so I feel less like a loser. Yay.

→ Chinese cinema is cool because it’s a different approach to film from anthropology last semester. I really want to see Don’t Look Now with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie now. The cinematography/editing was really cool especially after it was pointed out to me. The prof (who seems pretty cool) went on for a bit about a supposedly amazing sex scene.

→ The class on Chinese culture is taught by an Anglophone Quebecer. He has this manner of speech that is totally different from the way other Anglophone Canadians speak (which raises questions about whether Quebecois identity is exclusively Francophone, especially considering the legacy of the Scottish elite at the heart of many of the older institutions). It reminds me of Tim Fletcher (an English muffin rather than a Pepper) from the Stills. He has an energy which makes reminders of Bronze Age China bearable. T-Y (I wonder if anyone calls him that) is in the class and has sat with me a couple times but today he disappeared to hang with his Korean buddies. There are more recognisable faces which is nice too. (It’s a strange classroom that gets a lot of sunlight and I’m going to have to remember to stop sitting in the dead centre of the lecture hall or I will have a tan on the left side my face but not on the right before springtime even hits.)

→ The Modern Middle East is taught by the same professor as modern Islamic Movements. The first adjective I can describe him with is just “kind.” It’s a good class and it will probably be less weird than a class about terrorism (there was a rumbling noise and he made a Bin Laden joke and haha), though he’s totally already reused two lectures. Unfortunately, it’s taught in a bomb shelter (o man) of a underground complex that’s kind of dreary. But I’ll deal.

AUDIO LINK: Nardwuar the Human Serviette interviews the Stills (2004). Nardwuar is from the West Coast and he interviews an English Muffin and a few Peppers. Listen for the different way(s) they speak English compared to the generic North American accent. (Nardwuar is such a stalker. I can only aspire to be half as detailed as he is in his research.)