Augusto Cessotto - Wake Me Up When September Ends

For Bubba, school begins for the first time on Tuesday, after Labor Day. He still looks forward to it, which is a good thing. Will take him by the school again today to reinforce the place on his melon; besides, he likes the wide open spaces of the halls and auditorium. It's one of those schools that were built in the 30s, so it's got the high ceilings and wide halls and everything's made of stone and not prefab and it looks more like a Federal building than a elementary school. But you know what? That's was what my public school looked like, so I'm fond of the design. Perhaps it's a sign.

As for my ignorant self school started last Monday. Let's review my 3 classes in order of difficulty:

- World Music: this class is what I call a "gimmie", which means one merely has to show up for class, finish one paper and complete the midterm and final to pass. Both exams are multiple choice, and the instructor is the type who hopes to stay in the student's good graces, so he's not going to make the exams difficult.

- Child Psychology: This class is run by a 'character' in his late 50s to early 60s; he likes to tell stories and anecdotes and whatnot. On the other hand, he does listen to the class when he asks what it is we are looking to gain from it (psychopathology won out over development - I helped). This means the class will be unique to the semester, which is cool. Difficulty rating: medium.

- Approaches to Religion: I'm still trying to figure out what's going on in this class, which one might say shouldn't be too surprising. The instructor is either one of the wisest people I've ever met, or out of his fucking mind. One would be entertaining, but the other could be... intriguing. His approach to the books of the Old Testament is something new to me, although with bits of things I've heard before. His reverence of Plato borders on the fanatical, but that's not always a bad thing.
One nugget I got from him - one that's going to stick, I think - is that one cannot gain wisdom from simply reading a book: one must have a teacher to truly understand a thing. Sounds right, so hopefully I'll bear that in mind in the future.

One thing he does do is try and goad the class regarding sexuality. Is he looking for homophobia in the class for a specific reason? It feels that way. Hmmm.

Before this semester started, we went to Splish Splash (a water park, obviously), and Bubba and I are going to his first baseball game in the next week and a half: Mets vs. Braves. Obviously, there's a history the since the Rocker incident, and I'm looking forward to watching Ass-lanta burn again.

I'll be back after these messages...

jdk