Exactly one month from today, I'll be home. Well, ok, I'll be in a plane, but that plane'll be pretty close to Chicago!
Two classes today - the new myth lecture and early modern culture (presentation day...). THe myth lecture was... well, I miss the old prof. The new lady doesn't seem as good a lecturer. She taught class from her seat behind a table, and this is not a lecture hall, so no one past the first row could see her, I'm sure. Further, she has a quiet, breathy, moist, pale voice. Mostly moist. The sound of her toungue peeling wetly off the roof of her mouth was louder than her words. It was like she was constantly trying to rewet her mouth, or suck on a cough drop or something. She began every sentence with this sort of smacking tongue noise, and it also interspersed itself throughout her speech, particularly around vowel sounds and consonant blends, so her speech ended up sounding like a series of hard consonants and tongue noises. Also, you know how some people have that problem of trailing off at the ends of sentences? Well she mumbles the first parts of her sentences, clearly articulates a few nouns in the middle, and then trails off again. It sounds like this:
there COMES a moment mumble something mumble MANIFEST itself mumble mumble mumble.
Only even the word manifest is largesly obscured by tongue noises. Oh, and whenever she thinks something is particularly important or interesting, she lowers her voice to a whisper. I guess for intensity or something?? Serioualy, I was sitting RIGHT in front of her, had both my hearing aids in and turned up... Ah, but then, then, she stood up to write something on the board. All of a sudden her voice got louder! I could hear her! Then she sat back down and I went back to doodling in my margins.
Oh, and what did she write on the board? I couldn't tell you. Her marker didn't work. But throughout the class, she got up three times to write on the board, each time apparantly not noticing her marker malfunction, or maybe just pretending it was working... i dunno. Oh yeah, and she's Russian, so I'm dealing with the accent on top of everything else.
I went back to the dorm eager for a nap. But there were workmen with hammers doing... i dunno, something with hammers.... to manbeast's door, so sleeping didn't happen. I thought I'd sign on and read some webcomics, or maybe talk to anyone awake. But the internet was out. Again. At least this time it was during office hours though! I went down to the computer desk on campus and reported it, then planted myself in a lab and worked out my schedule for next semester.
I met Sebastian to go over our projects. He actually showed up, AND he had actually done the research, so I went into class feeling pretty confident. Turns out, he sucks at speaking in front of people. I did most of the talking. Probably better that way. I think the presentation went pretty well.
I went back to the room and booked my bus tickets for March! I'm excited, and all ready to go. Well, ok, obviously I'm not packed. But other than that - ready!! Tonight I tried some "mexican" rice I bought at Tesco. Basically I need to get back to America. The end.
Seems like everyone has hit that point where they are really lusting after home. Lisa is dreaming about the yo-yos. I've been doing a lot of talking to the high school friends and Emily and I had this ridiculously long phone conversation (which, for us, is normal, but usually we aren't so irresponsible about it. We talked a lot about spring break). Hang in there. Rome awaits at least.
ReplyDeleteHow does this woman, btw, take herself seriously? What goes through your mind when you try to theatrically emphasize your speech by dropping to a whisper? Of course, she seems not to notice much so there you go. She's probably off in her own world. I'd watch out on exams if she is the one grading...she seems like the type to fault you unless you write exactly what she is thinking.
Good luck!