Truth be told, I’ve never really gotten along that well with people my own age. Yes, before anybody jumps on me (you know who you are), there are exceptions, but generally my friends average out to be about seven years older than me. Believe me, this is not a “look how mature I am” post. My premature aging probably goes beyond what is natural or impressive. For example, on a recent trip to Target, I bought corn pads (all cleared up, FYI) and a contour neck pillow with memory foam. And no, it wasn’t the fancy NASA kind. I’m also a penny-pincher who always chooses to go generic. I also love old lady names like Ethel and Dolores, am obsessed with comfortable footwear, and, when I can be talked into driving, I don’t like going faster than 25 miles an hour. To me, the perfect Saturday night is curling up with my dog and catching up on my stories. I think that music was better “back then” and hide my alcohol in a collection hollow Civil War figurines (that might be a lie).
Anyway, never was my old ladyishness more raging than today in my Women’s Studies lecture. As the professor was introducing the guest speaker (some broad on her period, no doubt), I kept being distracted by two girls sitting next to me who were fake whispering (the kind that sounds more like talking). Not only that, but these were the same girls that had fake whispered through the entire previous lecture. I tried to ignore it, but found out that I could not. What did I do? Did I yell at them to shut up? Did I give them the hard stare? No, what I said was this:
“Ladies, can you please wait to have this conversation after class?"
Throughout the remainder of the lecture, I kept shaking my head and thinking, “Kids these days. Who ARE their parents?”
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Under the knife
Hi all,
I’ve been away prepping the site for a little reconstructive surgery, but now we’re back! Move over, Meg Ryan. It’s The Astounding Adventures of the Pop Quiz Kid that’s got the hottest new face on the block!
The illustration is by me, but it was aided and computerized by my pop, a photoshop extraordinaire. Hopefully the new banner will make my site a little more legitimate looking, but, more importantly, a little more comfortable for you to spend time in.
I hope you like it!
-PQK
I’ve been away prepping the site for a little reconstructive surgery, but now we’re back! Move over, Meg Ryan. It’s The Astounding Adventures of the Pop Quiz Kid that’s got the hottest new face on the block!
The illustration is by me, but it was aided and computerized by my pop, a photoshop extraordinaire. Hopefully the new banner will make my site a little more legitimate looking, but, more importantly, a little more comfortable for you to spend time in.
I hope you like it!
-PQK
Friday, April 11, 2008
April is the cruelest month
In every English major’s life, he or she is blessed with hearing a recording of T.S. Eliot speaking. The first time I heard him was in my modern American lit. class. The second time was today. For those of you who haven’t heard him speak, here’s a little taste. And no, I really don’t expect you to listen to the entire thing.
Keep in mind, friends, the man is from St. Louis, AMERICA. He’s just some expat who decided he wanted an English accent. He’s like the original Madonna, rubber bracelets included (I hope). Some people are annoyed by people who speak in accents that aren’t originally their own. I, for one, think that they’re awesome. I adopt multiple accents a day, all of them equally terrible.
Since hearing ol’ T.S. for the first time, his accent has been put into my repertoire. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t throw him around haphazardly. I don’t shout, “Marie! Marie! Hold on tight!” to the cab driver or the kid behind the counter at the coffee shop. No, he is reserved for only those I care about most deeply.
Here’s an example from a conversation between my mother and I this past weekend:
PQK: (in the voice of T.S. Eliot) Winter are the cruelest months.
Mom: Don’t you mean “April?”
PQK: (still as Eliot) No.
Mom: It’s “April.”
PQK: (as myself)No! I… (as Eliot) Yes.
Mom: Ha.
PQK: (as Eliot) Shut up. It’s my poem and I can do whatever I (pausing for dramatic effect) want with it.
Excluding telling my mom to shut up, that’s relatively endearing, right? Not if you ask my poor friend Dustin, one of the main victims of my impersonation. Not only does he have to listen to it, but he has to listen to it as I freestyle poetry… poetry about him. Once, I recited one on the way to the dog fair (yes, dog fair) that lasted almost ten minutes. It went vaguely like this:
PQK: (as Eliot)
Dustin… How he used to laugh and play,
Crying “Mama, mama! Unleash the dog!”
Now his hands, cracked and long, they stretch
Toward the sky, stained with clouds like a soiled blouse.
“We will get coffee. No, we shan’t get coffee.”
This is our day. This is our day
You must listen to whatever I say.
Dustin: (exasperated) The end!
PQK:(as Eliot)The end!—is not yet here!
I think that I have now thoroughly demonstrated (A) what an amazing modernist poet I am and (B) why you should never be friends with me.
Keep in mind, friends, the man is from St. Louis, AMERICA. He’s just some expat who decided he wanted an English accent. He’s like the original Madonna, rubber bracelets included (I hope). Some people are annoyed by people who speak in accents that aren’t originally their own. I, for one, think that they’re awesome. I adopt multiple accents a day, all of them equally terrible.
Since hearing ol’ T.S. for the first time, his accent has been put into my repertoire. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t throw him around haphazardly. I don’t shout, “Marie! Marie! Hold on tight!” to the cab driver or the kid behind the counter at the coffee shop. No, he is reserved for only those I care about most deeply.
Here’s an example from a conversation between my mother and I this past weekend:
PQK: (in the voice of T.S. Eliot) Winter are the cruelest months.
Mom: Don’t you mean “April?”
PQK: (still as Eliot) No.
Mom: It’s “April.”
PQK: (as myself)No! I… (as Eliot) Yes.
Mom: Ha.
PQK: (as Eliot) Shut up. It’s my poem and I can do whatever I (pausing for dramatic effect) want with it.
Excluding telling my mom to shut up, that’s relatively endearing, right? Not if you ask my poor friend Dustin, one of the main victims of my impersonation. Not only does he have to listen to it, but he has to listen to it as I freestyle poetry… poetry about him. Once, I recited one on the way to the dog fair (yes, dog fair) that lasted almost ten minutes. It went vaguely like this:
PQK: (as Eliot)
Dustin… How he used to laugh and play,
Crying “Mama, mama! Unleash the dog!”
Now his hands, cracked and long, they stretch
Toward the sky, stained with clouds like a soiled blouse.
“We will get coffee. No, we shan’t get coffee.”
This is our day. This is our day
You must listen to whatever I say.
Dustin: (exasperated) The end!
PQK:(as Eliot)The end!—is not yet here!
I think that I have now thoroughly demonstrated (A) what an amazing modernist poet I am and (B) why you should never be friends with me.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Are you there, blog? It's me, the PQK
Alright, yall. It’s been awhile. Many of you have probably gone on to find new and better blogs. How can I blame you? I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with a blog this unreliable and distant either. But please, I’m begging you to give me one more shot to explain myself.
Over the past month, there have been numerous occasions where I have sat down to write entries, like “What would it be like to live with aliens?!” (I sort of know, I live with a Canadian) or “If I was a has-been Backstreet Boy, which one would I be?” (Wikipedia has just informed me that they are still together. I wonder how that’s going), but for each crazy topic line, I was only left with a blinking curser.
Truth be told, there were a lot of other things keeping me from the blogosphere. University (yes, I’ve acquired British dialect since I’ve been gone and am far to sophisticated to say “college”) has been working me to the bone (and not in a sexy way)—essay after essay, exam after exam. While I’ve only been working weekends, work has been driving me a little cuckoo, too. Gosh, it’s a good thing that the creative writing degree that I’m so tirelessly working on will provide such a lucrative career. Then I’ll really get out of the service industry, huh? crickets
There’s been a wee bit of fun in there, too. I went to visit my friends, nicknamed A-mos (a lá Bennifer), in Philadelphia. Maybe I’ll do a Philly post in honor of the upcoming primary, complete with photos.
I digress. The fact is I was feeling pretty void of creativity and the little bit that I could muster generally went into dressing up in spring ensembles and narcissistically photographing myself in front of my window. Keep in mind, I really wanted to write, but geez louise was it not going well. What was wrong with me? Usually blogging is a welcomed form of procrastination from my wacky schooly world. Was I sick? Was it time to throw in the towel?
I did a little research, scouring the web for new blogs and carefully reading my old favorites. What do these people have that I didn’t? It hit me. I was trying way too hard. Each entry I tried to write in the last month was so lame because all it was was me trying to show you how clever and awesome I am. Somehow, through the internet, I had reverted back to the Pop Quiz Kid of middle school days, showing up to class in my new sketchers and Jennifer Aniston haircut only to have the popular kids laugh about it later.
So I’ve decided to make the same decision now that I did then (only this time, it won’t involve flared jeans and Blink 182 t-shirts) and stop trying so god damn hard. One thing that all of the bloggers that I like have in common is their sincerity or at least the talents to fake it. So here we go, embarking on a new path with the Pop Quiz Kid… that is if you’ll have me back.
Over the past month, there have been numerous occasions where I have sat down to write entries, like “What would it be like to live with aliens?!” (I sort of know, I live with a Canadian) or “If I was a has-been Backstreet Boy, which one would I be?” (Wikipedia has just informed me that they are still together. I wonder how that’s going), but for each crazy topic line, I was only left with a blinking curser.
Truth be told, there were a lot of other things keeping me from the blogosphere. University (yes, I’ve acquired British dialect since I’ve been gone and am far to sophisticated to say “college”) has been working me to the bone (and not in a sexy way)—essay after essay, exam after exam. While I’ve only been working weekends, work has been driving me a little cuckoo, too. Gosh, it’s a good thing that the creative writing degree that I’m so tirelessly working on will provide such a lucrative career. Then I’ll really get out of the service industry, huh? crickets
There’s been a wee bit of fun in there, too. I went to visit my friends, nicknamed A-mos (a lá Bennifer), in Philadelphia. Maybe I’ll do a Philly post in honor of the upcoming primary, complete with photos.
I digress. The fact is I was feeling pretty void of creativity and the little bit that I could muster generally went into dressing up in spring ensembles and narcissistically photographing myself in front of my window. Keep in mind, I really wanted to write, but geez louise was it not going well. What was wrong with me? Usually blogging is a welcomed form of procrastination from my wacky schooly world. Was I sick? Was it time to throw in the towel?
I did a little research, scouring the web for new blogs and carefully reading my old favorites. What do these people have that I didn’t? It hit me. I was trying way too hard. Each entry I tried to write in the last month was so lame because all it was was me trying to show you how clever and awesome I am. Somehow, through the internet, I had reverted back to the Pop Quiz Kid of middle school days, showing up to class in my new sketchers and Jennifer Aniston haircut only to have the popular kids laugh about it later.
So I’ve decided to make the same decision now that I did then (only this time, it won’t involve flared jeans and Blink 182 t-shirts) and stop trying so god damn hard. One thing that all of the bloggers that I like have in common is their sincerity or at least the talents to fake it. So here we go, embarking on a new path with the Pop Quiz Kid… that is if you’ll have me back.
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