Chinese is fun.

I like Chinese. The only problem I'm currently having is that my prof likes to go around the room and ask everyone what their hobbies are, and then she asks follow-up questions. Like, "What kind of movies?" Or, "When do you watch baseball?" Or, "How long have you been playing the harp?"

My answers to these questions, in order:

"Um... *flip lots of pages in notebook* ac... tion?"
"... I don't know." (How the fuck do you say "during baseball season" in Chinese?)
"Uh... twenty. I mean, twelve. Years. I've been playing the harp for twelve years."

I like the part where she goes around the room and asks us what color various things are. Especially when she does fruit, because we tend to disagree.

"What color are mangoes?"
"Yellow!"
"Not yellow. Orange."
"Red."
"Green."
"I don't think you're supposed to eat them if they're green."
"Well, no one said we were talking about edible mangoes."

"What color are bananas?"
"White!"
"... seriously, your first thought when someone asks you what color bananas are is white?"

"What color are kiwifruit?"
"Blue!"
"I, uh, don't think that's what you meant to say."
"Oh. Um... how do you say green?"
"Wait, do you mean on the outside or the inside?"
"Hel-lo, kiwifruit are green."
"No, they're brown."
"They're hairy. How do you say 'hairy' in Chinese?"
"Oh, shut up."

Rrr.

So, I'm supposed to read all this stuff:

-- the background section in my Norton's entitled "The Twentieth Century"
-- "The Man Who Dreamed of Fairyland," Yeats
-- a handout on modernism
-- an essay entitled "What is Reader-Response Criticism?"
-- the first 6 pages of Heart of Darkness

... and then write a 2-page summary/evaluation of it all. But... what on earth does he actually want? I mean, seriously, "summary/evaluation" is all he would tell us about the assignment. I want to hit him with sticks. I guess I'll just write, I don't know, a paragraph or so on each thing, starting with a crappy summary and finishing with an "evaluation," which I choose to interpret as including such statements as "This essay caused my brain to run out my ears in an effort to escape, primarily because of its incompetent organization of topics." (That would be "The Twentieth Century," if you were wondering.)

Bleah. Hate stupid homework.

Well, I dutifully summarized the first 5 pages or so of "The Twentieth Century," then began my next paragraph with, "I can't stand to summarize any more of this part of the reading." Hopefully that won't do me too much harm. Lazo seems like a very reasonable guy, and I'm hoping he'll appreciate how completely mind-numbing the material is and not mind that I'd rather focus on the interesting bits. By which I mean, y'know, the actual writing we're studying in this class.

Oh, and a note to the editors of Norton's: if you're going to refer to Finnegans Wake as "a monumental dead end" and yet apparently consider it a great work of literature, would you at least do your reader the favor of explaining your reasoning? Generally "a monumental dead end" is not considered a compliment. Weirdos. Go die, Norton's editors.