Snow in the Desert

Laughter is a wonderful sound. It is noise that can lilt gaily across the parlour or break out uproariously through a bar. Laughter is the best medicine, and prolonged laughing is actually good exercise. Rednecks laugh like this: haw haw haw! And I’m a huge fan of laughter and all things laughy, except taffy. But there are times when you do not want to hear laughter. Say, for instance, at your sentencing, or when you have sex for the first time. I bet you never want to hear a mortician laugh either, because what the hell does he have to laugh about? It has to be something really fucked up if a mortician is laughing. You also don’t want to hear laughter at 8 a.m. on a Friday morning, especially when the laughter is followed by the words “It’s snowing!”

There are two things wrong with this situation. First, someone is awake enough to be joyful at 8 a.m. on a Friday. Second, it is snowing. In California. In the desert. I rolled off the air mattress and surveyed the scene. Turns out what passes for snow around here is a forty-five second flurry of hailstones the size of crumbs that melted almost instantly upon landing. So the incident was brief, there was no imminent danger, and I went back to bed for another hour. However, the point remains: it snowed on me! I moved out here so that wouldn’t happen. Additionally, it rained a few days ago. I’ve been here two weeks and it rained both liquids and solids! I’m upset and plan on speaking with someone about this, possibly wording a stern letter to the management.

I’ve also had a nice turn of events with the University system here. Turns out I was given transfer credit for the wrong class here at UCR. The class I was supposed to get credit for I am (was) currently enrolled in, and they have since dropped me from that course and signed me up for the other one which is in the spring quarter. So now I am enrolled in just two classes for eight credit hours. Sweet! Tuition refund! An unexpected couple thousand bucks in your pocket will – wait, survey says? ThisisagreysuitNOT! Despite taking just two classes I am still considered enrolled FULL TIME and still have to pay FULL TUITION. This is bullshit and after we’re done celebrating the fact that it only took us three hundred years to stop being racist jackasses I’ll be speaking to someone else about this.

The class I was dropped from however looked interesting. Another liberal professor, and heavy use of technology. The class is podcasted and testing is done with a “Clicker”, an infrared remote control with alphanumeric buttons. Test questions are posted on a screen at the front of the class and individuals just press the button of their answer choice, which is instantly beamed via science to a computer, or “black magic pornography box”, and recorded. This technology is weird and different and frightened me a little so perhaps it’s better I’m not enrolled. During the one class I did make it to we watched Michael Jackson’s video for “Smooth Criminal” and the live performance of “Billie Jean” where he first did the moonwalk. At the end of the course the professor showed a three minute silent video montage of war footage from over the world. It wasn’t specifically addressed to the present war, but against war in general, and ended with a quote from Gandhi: “An eye for an eye will make the world blind.”

Now I’m off to a classmate’s birthday party. Turns out we live in the same apartment complex, so he invited me over. Our only connection was video games, so this should be interesting, or awkward. I’ll think I start drinking.