October 01, 2003
Improv Speech Day! Run!!!
Yesterday's more-or-less completed entry:
In spite of a few minor incidents during the morning, my day did not get truly interesting until 12:00 rolled around. Speech happens at 12, you see. Today, as we were to learn, was one of the famous impromptu speaking days. After each of us had written 3 possible topics on a piece of paper and handed them in, Col. Payton selected one and did a speech on a combination of the three topics (ice cream, tennis, and the myths of marriage). He then informed us that we would take this outside to continue. Ever cognizant of his story about an earlier class (see a few posts down) some precocious young man asked if we could park ourselves in front of FL's office. When told that we could not, he asked if we could go, instead, to Woug's.
Direct quote from Payton: "No. But I'd rather be in front of Dr. Austin's office than Doug Wilcoxson's."
So we proceeded to go outside and find a generally neutral area, far away from the Glass Eyes. Senator Barnes picked my paper almost immediately and spoke on Sir Thomas More . . . Who, it seems, was actually an opium addict who lived during the first half of the 20th century. In his most famous work, A Day in the Life of Digby Marlin, he created a character who was not addicted to anything as a release for himself. Considering he made up every single fact on the spot, it was an excellent speech.
Then it was my turn, and someone wasn't half as original on potential topics as I was. I took the easy way out: "Three Things I Hated about Yesterday." One of those things, of course, was the fact that FL was unable to address us. After I had plunged straight into this portion of the day, I realized that I was swimming in deep and troubled waters. I had to come up with a bit of flowery speech (keeping my voice from getting overly sarcastic, my excessive praise spoke for itself) concerning Admin, and I have no doubt that a few people believed I was sincere. That hurts, but it could have been worse. Things were a bit dicey for a few seconds there . . . The guy after me ended his speech with, "The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding tastes good," which had nothing to do with his topic. But it was funny.
The only other thing of import from my day was the beginning of the Yiddish Project. Wilson and I have taken it up, and anyone else who wants to follow suit is very welcome. Yiddish is an amazing language on a number of levels, and I think it would add large amounts of character and spirit to our conversations. So go learn some Yiddish, you stupid mamzers, before I tseshmetter you. And no kvetching, even if you do think I'm kibbitzing. I wouldn't want to have to shlep you kicking and screaming . . . Alivay, I could just pager! Shtup is completely out of the question, and . . . I'm just bupkehing now. Enough. Too much more of this and somebody's gonna plotz.
And that's it. As for today, well, it wasn't that interesting. You can probably make up something fun that I did to day, and amuse yourself quite effectively, if you're into that sort of thing. As for me, it's time to get started on my homework. Good night, y'all.