Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Or as I like to call it, Single's Awareness Day (I did not make that up. My best friend "coined it"- I know she wasn't the first one but she was the first person I ever heard call it that- and so she would have to tell you the story of why she used to call it that. But we'll save that for another day)

First, I want to talk about how long it's been since my last blog post. I have been most busy since the new year, with school...and school...and school....and well...school.

It's been busy busy busy (in case you can't tell, I'm writing this post with an acute case of tired-teenager-syndrome. I've been at school since 8 o'clock this morning and am about to go into my fourth class. most unpleasant). Anyways, so yes, for example, this morning I used by hour and a half long break to study for a psychology midterm that apparently...wasn't actually today.

It's on Thursday. >.<

Anyways, let me tell you about my psych teacher. She's a little insane which is a quality I think makes for good psychology teachers. And she enjoys talking about drugs and other degenerative habits (which makes me think that she either had a really  But she's mostly great. And so is my calculus 2 teacher. His favorite pasttimes are pretending to swear in arabic, singing "Layla" to my friend Leila and swearing in franglais (WHAT DE FUCK THIS TABERNAK DE PROBLEME)

This is all true. And in a typical cal 2 class, all three of these things will happen.

oh, and someone will end up throwing a piece of chalk at the blackboard to get it to land on the edge. So far, two people have succeeded. Apparently it's a lot harder than it looks. I wouldn't know as I've never tried, although I do know that the last time I tried to pass a piece of chalk to the person sitting two rows behind me, I ended hitting the girl right behind me in the chest with the chalk.

So maybe I shouldn't be throwing things.

Anyways, so that's school for the moment. My western civilization teacher has a habit of speaking entirely too quickly so we never get the full picture. Or maybe it's just that we need to get through SIX THOUSAND YEARS OF HISTORY in just under four months. Or just under 15 weeks as for some reason, semesters are counted in weeks. It's strange. And most unlike high school. I hated high school.

Anyhow, with Valentine's day coming up and my inability to send articles in to the school paper on time (we're called "The Papercut": cutting to the chase. yes, we're pretentious. and a little bit awesome. You know you're jealous), my article on Single's Awareness went unpublished, although I suppose it was for the best. Most people seem to like Valentine's day but that's probably because they believe it's all about cherubs and hearts and chocolate.

Well, they didn't have chocolates and roses back in ancient rome where the "holiday" originated.

Let me tell you a little story:

Around the year 268 in Rome, Emperor Claudius II (aptly named Claudius Gothicus) ordered that St Valentine of Rome convert to Roman Paganism. When he refused, he was killed. Not to mention that there were craploads of Valentines at the time and they're not even sure which one was actually named for the holiday. The story that some of you are more familiar with is probably the one where Claudius passed a law forbidding marriage as married men were less likely to want to fight in his wars. So there were a lot of lonely men out there. Valentine (one of them at least) decided to continue marrying people in secret and was caught and killed. The concept of valentine's day as a holiday celebrating loved ones wasn't introduced until the 14th century with Chaucer and his depictions of courtly love.

So let's put this in perspective: St Valentine's day is the day that the valentines of ancient rome got together to worship. It doesn't sound much like a holiday where you buy people candy, roses and heart-shaped breads and plan over the top excursions to Punta Cana and have wild hot monkey sex on the beach only the come home and discover that you're either pregnant or sick with Hepatitis. Or, if you're a teenage/young adult girl, you've spent what's left of your christmas money on lingerie that isn't even that sexy (cuz if your mom ever found any of that, she would kill you) and you set the cliche of sleeping with your boyfriend for the first time on valentine's day in stone. Or you're a lonely cynic like me who hates valentine's day claiming that it's turned into a consumer driven boink fest.

But the truth is, you're just sad that you didn't get a rose and every time you see a girl walking around with a perfect red rose on valentine's day, even if it's from her best friend as a joke, you get a little pang of jealousy.

But hey, as many people I know have said: Valentine's day is THE day to tell someone how much you love them? Fuck that, I do that everyday!

Valentine's day: celebrating loneliness since 207 AD!

Happy Valentine's Day everybody <3