Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Books: March edition

Books bought:
"Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides
"Then We Came to the End" by Joshua Ferris
"Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi
"Dreams from My Father" by Barack Obama
"Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

Books read:

Uh? Reading?

The problem with having a roommate who works part time at Barnes & Noble is the very tempting 30 percent discount. It makes you buy books even when you have so many unread ones you couldn't possibly read them all in the next five years — especially at the rate I read. My roommate, who also has an addiction to books, reads a ton of books. She tears through them to get to the end. Meanwhile, I wander slowly through mine, savoring the words. I actually read every word. I find it enjoyable, but frustrating because I can't read nearly as many books as I would like to.

This is why I've been reading my friend's copy of "Kavalier & Clay" since January. I also read every article in the weekly New York Magazine that I get and, of course, there's all that Spanish homework that isn't exactly reading itself. I'm also frustrated by my reading in foreign languages, as I've been reading "El Leon, la Bruja y el Ropero" for about two years and the first Harry Potter book in Greek for even longer. I'd like to finish both, so I could move on to Harry Potter book 2 in Greek and "El Amor en los Tiempos del Colera" in Spanish. But they just sit there mocking me.

I'm trying to make a little push here to do a whole lot of reading in a short period of time. I plan to finish "Kavalier & Clay" in the next two weeks, in time for my trip to England, where I can take two much smaller paper backs on the plane with me. I plan to finish both on the trip (I'm counting on the 8 hour flight to get me most of the way there — though of course I'll probably just watch movies. And then come home to start "The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao" before moving on to a book my roommate would like me to read. (People are constantly loaning me books, which I always return....eventually.)

Of course April will just bring a lot more books I'll buy and won't get around to reading for another six years. Sigh. I think I have an illness.

Monday, March 09, 2009

Taxes!

New York State tax forms are the most confusing, convoluted piece of government form-ery ever created. Every year I finish my federal tax forms in no time. (I have no children, no alimony, no winnings from gambling or anything like that to complicated things — I have two incomes and an education credit and that's it.) Filled with a sense of accomplishment I rush over to complete the NY State tax form and am immediately stymied.

I mean, in what world is the federal tax form easier than a state tax form? This one, I guess.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

We pause for a note on Bucky's Spanish class

I am now in Spanish 302. Once again it is three ridiculous hours on a Thursday night. And once again, it may be the worst class I've ever taken. This time there are only five of us in the class. Seven signed up and two dropped out after the first class. Two of the people were in the last class. One is an old Chinese woman who is a space cadet and has trouble understanding Spanish. And English. We have a new teacher. An adjunct. I don't know anything about his background, except that he is Cuban and he insists on speaking English. Only his English sucks. He uses words incorrectly. He told the class for our last test that there would be no cultural readings on the test, so no one studied them. Only what he meant to say was there WOULD be cultural readings on the test. The double negative strikes again. He's much easier to understand when he speaks Spanish. Only he won't speak Spanish.

When I speak Spanish, he says, "OK. Say it in English first and then we translate it to Spanish." So then I say it in English and he pauses and then says, "Oh. No. That was correct." And he'll move on to the next person. It's totally insane.

And though we've had a test and several homework assignments, we've yet to get a single grade back on anything he's given us, so no one has any friggin' idea how we're doing in class. Also every class, no matter what country is the topic of our lecture (Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina), they all go back to the Cuban revolution. And Che. And the movie about Che.

This class is totally insane. And the only thing I can safely say I've learned in the five weeks or so that we've had class, is the personal "a". I'd never been introduced to that concept and now when to put that with the object of the verb makes a LOT more sense. So there's that. Not quite worth $400+, but it's something, I guess.