January 6, 2005
By some stroke of great fortune, I manage to get reaccepted to the writing class I was kicked out of because it was too full. I just know I’m going to love this class; I could tell just by looking at the professor’s name: Kevin DiPirro. Say it in your mind. How could you not love someone with a name like that?
And sure enough, he’s very lovable. He wears the black turtleneck and short hair of Steve Jobs and when he gestures you can see his hands making color-coded words and punctuation marks in the air.
The class itself consists of a small group around a table. There are lots of girls and laptops. We discuss articles I haven’t read (although I vaguely remember reading one, a National Magazine Award winner, many years ago). I love the class anyway.
My knee problems have been slowly going away. In some downtime I investigate them, quietly massaging my knee, when I notice a huge lump has suddenly shifted. I push on it — ow! — this is definitely what’s causing the pain. I quietly freak out before I remember how on an episode of Penn and Teller a lady had a similar thing and thought it was an alien egg implantation and a doctor operated and removed it and videotaped it and Penn and Teller showed the videotape to the doctor and he said it was just a lump of fat that broke off and it happens all the time. Happens all the time. Not an alien. I’m not worried.
I go to San Francisco for a Creative Commons party. The Swedish American Hall insists on putting large Xs on my hands since I’m under 21; I consider telling people that I’m going straightedge. Prof. Lessig introduces me to Willem, his baby boy. While Lessig talks to a variety of important people about important things, I talk to Willem about the colorful things being projected on the screen. Willem, of course, is sitting on Lessig’s head.
Unfortunately, while there are lots of other interesting people there, I feel like I don’t get a chance to talk to them. I am, however, mobbed by economics majors who try to claim some sort of validity for their field of study. I’ll probably take economics next term, but from what I’ve seen so far its even worse than psychology, which is really saying something. Economics seems to be the most blatant form of right-wing propaganda, dressed up as education. Needless to say, the economists don’t like hearing this.
Afterwards I go out to dinner with Seth and Brad Templeton and some others (including a friend of Seth’s who happened to be just wandering down the street when he saw a bunch of Creative Commons people going into a building). I have a very nice plate of pasta. Brad and a person who I guess is his wife (she looks so familiar but I can’t place her…) drives me back to Stanford; I have trouble finding things to talk about with him and end up just feeling embarrassed before his mighty presence.
posted February 13, 2005 11:51 PM (Education) (5 comments) #