First day back

It has been a while since I've done this school stuff. The first day of classes are always interesting because it is hard to include a lesson plan in with all of the introductions and the syllabus. Of course I've had some teachers that simply forgo the syllabus and jump right into the lectures. Those are always interesting classes. It is true that the syllabus is fairly similar for all of the classes that I have taken, but it can be a little weird when we just jump into things. I'm trying to remember what classes I have taken where that was the case, but I can't really recall any particular classes run this way (perhaps I did this at another institution and I just can't think that far back).
One reason I have heard of professors skipping doing the syllabus is that they claim that I am paying for the class time, so they should use it well. The thing is though is that I am not paying for the class time. It is an argument I hear all the time from students who are real nuts about not missing class. They go on and on about how each class hour is worth a certain amount of money and so on and so forth. But the truth is most students are paying for the classes, they aren't even really paying for the education. They are paying for a name brand degree. Sure, the education that comes along with it is nice, but I seriously doubt that many people would go through the “college experience” if they didn't get the degree at the end. I agree that class time is important and I don't like skipping classes, and yes I am paying to be in those classes, but in the end I am giving away all those little dollars so that when I graduate they will give me a piece of paper that says I can go out and get a good job (or that I can pay more money to say that I can get another piece of paper that will say I can get an even better job).
I'm sure that this sounds like a fairly negative rant (which I didn't intend to get into) but that is the way it goes for me. It also brings me to my most recent poem, Paying for Poetry. This poem did not go the way I expected it to. I actually like it a lot, although it definitely needs some more work. It uses one of my favorite words in it, “dweeb”. I mean even the way it is spelled is wonderful. Not many words start with “dw”. I can't think of any others, but that is because I am not looking nor am I thinking very hard.

Paying for Poetry

Five dollars at a book store
buys a lot of poetry.
A used bookstore of course,
you can't buy nothing nowadays
without breaking anything less than a twenty.
Books are no exception.
But poetry,
that sits outside
with all those other books no one wants.
Books about looking for Santa Clause,
and how to cook naked.
Eventually those books find a home,
even the poetry
whose lyrics are lost upon those
who it is suppose to inspire.
Too boring,
doesn't make enough sense,
and it is for dweebs.

But us dweebs,
we love our poetry.
We take our five dollars to
the bookstore and
we scour the titles for something
that we need to have.
Something that we need to hold
under some dim light and read
until our eye can no longer focus
and we are forced to look away.
But not for long,
we force ourselves to go on just a little longer
just long enough so that we know
that we ripped off that bookstore
because we bought poetry.

Copyright 2008 William Curb

Poetry

I feel like I have forgotten how to even write poetry. It has really been a long time since I have done any really. I suppose being away from school has done that, and I have really been away for quite a while now. I mean first with Brazil and then going to Hawaii. It was always busy.

To get myself out of my rut I decided to go browsing through some of my older poetry and revise something so I could get my creative juices flowing (and start using cliches again, woo!). The poem I selected to work on is a poem I wrote for my Intro to Poetry class. It is called Sandstorm, although i have renamed it ghost. Needless to say it did need some work. Part of the reason I selected this poem is because it is some what sci-fi. When writing it I had a vision of a sci-fi world of sand much like the series Trigun (or perhaps Dune for those of you who don't watch anime). The revision wasn't to hard because I didn't feel particularly attached to any part of the poem, except perhaps that end that I liked the sound of and I felt was the real meat and potatoes of the poem. I changed a lot and I'm not sure it has the same sci-fi feel as the first one, although it is clear (I think) that the poem is not set in our reality. That is that the poem isn't occurring on Earth as we know it (although I suppose it could in some deserty region, but I don't really know).

Ghost

Stories tell that
the sand
pelting our faces
was not always here.
That the sand
is a product of man's folly,
or God's Wrath.
I don't know which is worse,
nor do I care.

We march through the dunes,
relentless as the sand itself
to find the town,
where we were told
water would be found.

But I know that
this town
will be bleak,
empty.
We will only find
the ghosts
of this town.

It was a long
time ago that
I even remembered
a town,
whose ghosts
weren’t as
thirsty as we
were.

Copywrite 2008 William Curb

Phantom Time Theory

Alright, it is really just a hypothesis, but it is fascinating in a completely insane way. The original hypothesis states the early middle ages never occurred. Charlemagne - fictional. Rise of Islam... well they think that happened, but just at some other time. They just believe that there are 300 years that have been randomly added to our calendar, with events occurring in that time period simply having been misplaced there. So it is supposed to be 1711, not 2008. Well actually, that isn't quite right. See that is the original hypothesis; however, more updated versions of the hypothesis are now arguing that over 1000 years of history is simply just recorded wrong and that we really need to rewrite history to account for these gross errors in our documentation.

I am working on a poem from this idea, but it isn't going well yet. I am thinking, however, that I might be able to come up with a great novel idea from this because I love stuff that is bat shit insane. I'm not going to argue that this is completely impossible, because it is possible, but it is quite unlikely. Here is a link to the wikipedia article on the subject.

35 Days

It has been 35 days since I have posted on here. Am I ashamed? Yes, a little, but not really enough to really make me feel bad. The real reason I haven't posted in about a month is because of travel and lack of internet. For a little over a week I was in Brazil and then I was in Hawaii, but now I am free to use the internet a much as I'd like. Hooray! Porn! Um... yeah... anyways...
You'd think that in my time traveling that I would get some stuff written but, alas, I did not. I am a lazy fucker and video games call to me. So this week I am going to get back on the writing train, so to speak, because I don't really believe that there is a train just for writing, but I could be wrong. I'll have to look into that. I have a lot to write about and a lot of time to write so perhaps I'll actually get something done, probably not.

Now I am off to play so version of Tiger Woods golf for the Wii. I don't know why but I just love golfing in video games. Actually I've started playing real golf recently and I enjoy that game as well as long as I am not being rushed. I hate being rushed in golf, mainly because I am terrible at the game. But I still like playing, it is fun when you aren't that good at it. So in the spirit of playing golf badly I have a piss poor golf poem for you.

Golf Poem

I like to make fun of golfers.
I mean just look at them.
It is a hilarious sport,
if you want to call it one.
For me I like to think of it as a game,
rather then a sport,
but what do I know.

I've been golfing only a handful of times,
and I freaking love the game,
but I'd damn sure hate it if I was any good.
I just swing away
if the ball goes further then I can throw it,
bully for me!
I've even gotten bogey once,
but usually I am 6 or 7 over par.

Golf is one of the few occasions where I drink.
I'm not terribly fond of alcohol,
but apparently when I swing
the odd misshapen sticks
I enjoy putting a few back,
even if it means I am going to have to play
a few more from the rough.

Copyright 2008 William Curb