What a day, and it's only the afternoon. Good gads.

My immediate concern is the barber at The Campus Barbershop (a private business near the campus with a deceptive name). I'm not good at small talk with strangers, or for that matter with anyone, really, unless I steer the conversation towards myself, but I really didn't care to discuss the pros and cons of Our Bold Hero today, as it seems vaguely self-absorbed. Somehow.

Well, anyways, I couldn't make small talk so I sat there in silence, which a year ago wouldn't have been a problem, but of late I've started to feel guilty for not entertaining barbers and hairdressers and such, because any job where you have to deal with customers kind of sucks. So I was sitting there in silence, feeling guilty, and after the haircut I gave him a tip.

A two dollar tip. First of all, that's too much to pay a self-employed barber on top of his normal fee. But secondly, this isn't the greatest haircut, and now next time I come back he'll think that I really liked it. So now I'm doomed to get this haircut over and over, unless, gads willing, he forgets who I am.

There was quite a bit of drama in Freshman studies today; The Feminist was absent, but one student decided to provoke a discussion about ethics, which ultimately saved us all from the dreaded lectures of our teacher. The Diplomat, The Queen of Plantz, this as-yet-undubbed hero, and myself wasted a lot of the class' (or is it classes?) valuable time discussing cloning and ethical value considerations and other junk.

Also, we got our papers back, and my previous grade is now adorned with a plus, the smallest possible concession Prof. Alger could give to my salutary improvements. The correction that bugged me on the first essay, and which I'd dismissed as a fluke, is still there:

The original monster is hideous despite the "infinite pains and care" (p. 56) put into beautifying his form, but had Frankenstein studied the results, he could have perfected the monster's bride, creating a better, if nonetheless revolting, abomination.

Around "revolting, abomination" Professor Alger drew a circle and wrote "Why?", questioning, yet again, why the second monster would have to be ugly. I believe I explained this in the first section of the sentence- the book says that Frankenstein put infinite pains and care into making his original creature beautiful, so how could he make the second monster look better? More than infinite pains and care?

Maybe I'm just taking the book too literally.

Well, whatever, I suppose I should go punish myself with a few chapters of Kuhn before I get to this afternoon's festivities: poster making with The D.J. I'll write about the other dramas of the day later tonight, after the choir concert and such.