Friday, October 28, 2005

News from the College Front

I hope that the title didn't mislead you into expecting real news. This post is going to be devoted strictly to minutae. For example, did you know that it is possible to wash clothes with dish-washing soap? Somebody stole my detergent from the laundry room and I was annoyed and out of clean socks (in fact, already far into the negatives, clean-sock-wise), so I improvised. Seems to be working ok, so far, but I'll know more when the clothes come out of the dryer.
Also, fabulous quote that was actually uttered. In a discussion of Metamophosis, somebody actually said, "The sub-humanity, in our view, of artho-pods". How phenomenally U of C geeky is that? And the best part is that the speaker is this huge hulking guy who is into sports and looks like a charicature of a dumb jock and is actually one of the most intelligent people in the class. Sometimes, I really love this university.
That's actually all that comes to mind for the moment, but I felt the need to feed to the blog, so there you go.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

My Commute

The fun thing about blogs is that they make you look at ridiculous experiences as fodder for your own entertainment. Case in point- my and Rachel's trip up north for Rosh Hashana. (Not a ridiculous experience thus far) So, as we were waiting for the last bus in our journey, which took like forever to come, and talking, I think, about methods of suicide, a large black man across the station shouts "Hello, sister." Naturally, we ignore him, and anyway, there was no reason to believe that he was talking to us. A bit later, he shouts it again and it's pretty clear that he is talking to Rachel. In a whirling flash of deduction, she realizes that the snood has lead him to believe she's a nun. The conversation goes as follows, to the best of my recollection:
Rachel (laughing): Oh, no, I'm not a sister.
Random Man: You're not Catholic?
Rachel: No, I'm not a nun.
Random Man: You're not? [Is it so unbelievable? Think of all the people in the world who aren't nuns.]
Rachel: No, I'm Jewish. My law says that married women should cover their hair.
R.M.: Well, at least you're married.
Me (who had been standing around laughing at Rachel):It's true, Rachel. At least you're married.
And then he floats off to inform the woman sitting on the bench that her shirt is pretty bright, leaving us with trying to figure out why it was better to be married. It's not like she was visibly pregnant or anything (or invisibly, to the best of my knowledge, for that matter). By that time, he was haranguing the woman for not taking her husband to the doctor because he wasn't eating enough. We moved away, thinking that it would be rude to laugh in front of him.
When the bus came (thirty blinking minutes later), he was still wandering around, bellowing at an acquaintance that "The policeman said to cool down, so I'm gonna have to curse you out quietly." Was he drunk? Was he crazy? Did he just have an unusual and interesting personality? Who knows? But he not only gave us free entertainment in the bus station, he also provided fodder a nice long blog post on a blog that is sadly lacking in recent entries.