Wherein I share my notes and try to make it interesting.

One of the notes I took in my lecture class, on Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh:

- Cypress tree = symbol of both death and eternal life. Connects terrestrial and celestial world.

I don't really understand what that means, or why I thought it would be a useful thing to write down, but it sounds very literary and profound. So why don't I like my Art History class? Because my prof has the unique ability to say interesting things in the most boring way possible. He talks like your 104-year-old great-grandfather trying to remember the price of everything in his hometown corner shop. And besides being able to put things into sentences that sound good, the amount of real information in his lectures is...lacking. If he does hit on something useful, you'll know it because he'll repeat it at least fifteen times over the course of three hours. This class has turned me into that jerk who quietly mumbles what the professor is going to say in the long pause before he says it. I know that complaining about the same thing over and over again is unbecoming, but I still feel a little shafted. I still operate under the delusion that you can't become a teacher unless you know how to teach well--years of excellent teachers at Westmount never prepared me for disappointment. How did I manage to be so lucky for so long?

As an unrelated bonus, here is a 224-word palindrome by my current youtube pseudo-crush, Demetri Martin. I spent way too long reading it backwards one night, just to make sure it was legit. (it is!)

http://www.slate.com/id/2101150/sidebar/2101387/ent/2101353/

I would have embedded one of his youtube videos, but as a general rule youtube takes "borrowed" material down as quickly as it gets put up. So I'll leave that up to you. You know, if you want. (I quite like his one-man-show, "If I". It's six videos long, but I thought it was worth it.)