This is no way to start a quarter

Today I began the last quarter of my undergraduate education. Perhaps that is cause for celebration in and of itself, but I’m having a hard time being stoked. Although it may be my last, it didn’t exactly get off to a stellar start.

Being in Gig Harbor all weekend, inside the dark heart of the military-industrialist Bush stronghold (my parent’s house), I didn’t have an opportunity to write a column condemning the same. I tried last night when my dad dropped me off in Seattle, but managed only to get the research in before Nathan arrived home, and roommate time took an immediate precedent over everything else that was happening. What can I say? I hadn’t seen the big lug in three months.

That was all well and good, but unfortunately necessitated pounding my column out this morning before running to my 12:30 compilers class, to which I was half an hour late. If I were the wise-cracking lead role in a new teen comedy, these actions would be charming. I’d pop a Mentos, make out with the homecoming queen, and wow the Dean with the ramshackle science project I’d thrown together the night before but which still earns top honors over the Tri-Delts’. But I’m not – I’m just a college student, and even I’m getting tired of my hijinks.

Things at the Daily aren’t looking so hot either. My article is running tomorrow as planned, but that’s where the good news ends. Jen Howk, the voice of liberal rage with whom I shared a page all last quarter and whose columns I really admired, got fired. From now on a late submission earns a 50% pay cut (I was late 100% of the time last quarter). All columnists are limited to 15″, down from 18″. And, best of all, there is a mandatory staff meeting every week. I’ve been writing for this section for years now, and even I don’t know what to make of all this. This is the problem with working for the Daily: every quarter the management changes. You never know what prizes or terrors await on the other side of a school break.

To top it all off, I’m taking Intermediate Short Story for the second time, my application having been rejected from the Advanced class. My disdain in class today – taught by my instructor from the beginning class – was palpable. How badly do I want to graduate?

So overall, I’m not in the sunniest of moods. One very good thing which I’m enjoying as we speak is my new MP3 CD player, which I finally broke down and bought on Saturday. It’s already changing my life. I was afraid that the interface would be absurdly clunky, but it’s actually surprisingly intuitive – I learned my way around it in two minutes. Now I can fit my entire music collection in my backpack – 130 songs per CD, yeah! It almost compensates for having to retake English 384.

One other thing worth noting before I scale the foothills of my mountainous reading list is my family’s new church, where we attended Easter services yesterday. I don’t know what to think. It was the MTV of churches: casual dress, flashy AV displays, no segment over five minutes, and a live band to rival John Mayer. In fact, I think if they just replaced “Jesus” with “baby,” they would have a record contract within five minutes. Maybe this is what people want out of an organized religion these days, but I was not impressed. I’ve come to expect a certain level of intellectual rigor when being lectured to (a sermon is just a lecture about God), and when that level isn’t met, I lose patience very quickly whether the subject is the resurrection or the works of Charlotte Bronte. This guy lost me the first time he interrupted his sermon to cue the video presentation to roll. I never thought I would be one to cry out for “that old time religion,” but I certainly am not a fan of the new stuff. Christianity is not supposed to be fun! You go to hell if you screw up here, people! Can we please go back to sitting in uncomfortable pews and cowering before the God who holds us over the abyss as we would hold a spider? That’s what I’m talking about.