Well, in the evening, Sam IMed me asking me if I wanted to go to Ascension, the name for Goth night at Club Orpheus in Baltimore. So I said yes, because I didn't foresee myself having anything better to do, and dragged Jose along too, because I didn't want to be at a club without at least one person who I knew decently well. We went with Sam and Jenny, his cousin, who seemed nice, if chronically angry. It's a strange combination, but it works like this:

Jenny: Hi!!! I'm Jenny!!!! ^__^
Jenny: Will you hurry the fuck up, Sam??? >___<
Jenny: Nice to meet you guys!! ^__^
Jenny: Goddammit! I need a smoke!!! >___<

Sam and Jose don't mix well. Both Sam and Jose have their annoying mannerisms, and while sometimes two people's annoying mannerisms can enhance one another's, in this case they aggravated each other like a particularly volatile reaction, or like the physics textbook illustrations of sound wave interference. Some of the things though, I don't understand why Sam does. Like why wear Devil's horns in public? Hmm? You must have been asking for the jeers at 7-11.

Ascension itself is close to the Harbor, in a Fell's Pointy type place though I couldn't be sure. You unlatch the thick, wooden door of an unassuming townhouse, and lo! a Goth club. Upon seeing that door, I almost expected one of those scenarios where you have to knock three times and someone pulls back a creaking panel, squints out, and says, "What is the shadow of the five moon ghost?" It didn't happen though. We just had to show our IDs and pay $6.

Orpheus in general seems pretty shitty as a club. It has a basement smell, or maybe the backstage of a community theater smell, and looks somewhat like a garret with a sound system and tables in a corner. The drywall wasn't even completely painted over yet; I think that's why they keep the lights dim. We went at nine, and no one was there. Jose complained that we would have a private club, which I thought was more the better, because Goths hate people anyway. There were people, maybe a handful, and everyone was huddled around the bar, smoking. At any given point there were like maybe three people dancing. Dancing, because you're a goth, in as unenergetic a way as possible, like in that South Park episode on Goth kids. It has to match the operatic moaning soundtrack, after all.

I think I had fun though. Not dancing, of course. The people there were fun to talk to, and Orpheus is quite a successful lounge, if a shitty club. I met a few nice Victorian gentlemen with swordcanes, who gave me good advice on getting good plus-sized men's Goth clothes (cowboy re-enactor sites, surprisingly), and bondage clubs in D.C. It's a shame about its club pretensions, actually, since once you stop trying to be cool (and fail miserably) it's a good place. If we could actually talk without shouting and choking on secondhand smoke, it would be lovely. Overall, I'm glad to be out on a different social scene every once in a while.

Plus, they had free pecan sandies.

---

Came back with Jose. Around one at night, the weather was cool but the campus abandoned. We were on our way to Late Night when we were accosted by a guy yelling, "HEY!" at us. I thought he was drunk, and began walking faster, with my head down. In a very shady tone, he went, "Hey... you guys fileshare? Are you anti-government? Well we all know this school rips you off, and I think it's about time we give something back to the students. Just this year, five students have been arrested for filesharing." The slowness of our downloads is oppressive, the expense of the dining hall an outrage, and Kazaa a political cause. Apparently he runs some sort of private direct-connection filesharing intranet on campus and wants us to be in on it, though he couldn't provide us enough specifications about it to really satisfy our curiosity. Convo goes as follows:

"So, where do you live?" Jose says amiably.

"Apartments."

"Which one?" asks Jose.

"I can't tell you." The guy is dead serious. "You scare me because you're asking so many questions." The guy's eyes dart from side to side. "Stop asking so many questions."

"Hillside!" guesses Jose.

The guy flinches.

"Casselman!" I narrow it down. Me and Jose think of Kay, and laugh.

The guy goes rigid. "Are you laughing at me???" he demands.

"No," Jose says, putting his hands up to defuse a confrontation, "it's just an inside joke."

"Tell me what it is," he insists, demanding proof that we aren't mocking his anti-authoritarian revolution, "I need to know."

So we have to explain it to him, how Kay lives in Casselman and has his own ftp which he uses to share files and the rest. By the time we explain it to him, it's not funny anymore, which is, of course why you don't explain inside jokes in the first place.

The guy gives us the ip address and then, seeing two other guys walking towards the dining hall, yells towards them, "HEY! HEY YOU!"

"Do we know you?" one of the guys calls back in a knife-edge polite, conversation-terminating inquiry. They begin walking faster.

The first guy writes his AIM handle down, and hands us a slip of paper.

"Here," he says. "You'll find me online."
---

Can someone tell me what the fuck?

Weird Day

Had classes... Kay's in my Greek history class, as are Becca and Michelle, the punks of archaeology I knew from Greek Archaeology last fall semester. Apparently Becca and Kay know each other, due to him helping her with Italian during her trip to Rome. This school is so small (for a state college) it's basically like six degrees of everything. Had Creative Essays, with the coolest teacher, and then Women in the Classical World. Becca (and all her friends) warned me extensively against the professor, saying she was insane, literally insane, in ways inconceivable to the human mind.

"You're taking the Women's Studies course, right?" Becca said. "That's her specialty. You'll die."

The class was interesting.

Actually, I don't see what the big fuss is about. It does seem like fun, though I don't like the idea of group projects and oral presentations. Curriculum-wise I'm also not too hot on the fact that the course, as Ancient Studies 320, is also a Women's Studies class. There are only like two guys in the class, and more than half of the class has never taken an ancient history class.

Upon being asked what they knew about women in the ancient world, the students were generally like, "Um.. Athenian women were like.. oppressed .. and stuff."

God help me. It's like taking Bio for Non-majors. Science majors, you understand my sentiment.

After class, I had this weird AIM convo with Will, which I don't think I'll post here. But, if you knew what it was, you'd agree with me that it was weird.

Just nod to this.

Had my first classes today.

Roman history seems alright. I'm glad there's no paper, though there seems to be a bit of reading. My professor seems good, if unconfident and young, like an older version of Peter Parker, with Toby Maguire playing him.

Econ was fine, but it sounds like a hard class.

Advanced Exposition sounds annoying; it seems like a class where you just write essays on political and social views. Also, there are six papers to write. But I need it for my writing minor, so unless I hope for a better teacher (and though I've heard my teacher is a bit crazy, I don't know if she's necessarily bad) I should probably just take it anyway.

Have moved into my dorm, at Harbor North, 342. My roommate seems sociable but not in the cheerful, party girl breed of outgoing that was characteristic of my last two roommates. Weird getting into the hang of things, especially when you look at old dorm buildings that you reflexively think of as your or your friends' dorms, but of course you don't live there anymore. My roommate has a webcam, which she says is basically her only way to see her boyfriend in New York. Will M has one too, one of the fancy ones that tracks his motions. I think this is a good idea for me and Jeremy, seeing that I might as well put my T1 (or T3, is it?) and his cable connection to good use. Also, I'm reminded of Jeremy a lot more than I was at home; I keep thinking I see him out of the corner of my eye, and oddly enough, certain smells remind me of him, though I can't really pin down what they are. Just certain hallway smells (not the Sus smell, mind you, which is still even after that building was renovated). He may be coming to visit me this weekend, God willing. Conflicted as to whether I'm happier around him or no; I mean, it is a lot harder to find things for two people to do than one person to do on this boring campus, as I by myself am pretty easy to please entertainment-wise. Give me the net and peer 2 peer.

Have spent my time after move-in unpacking and decorating. My room is smaller than the one at Chesapeake or Jeremy's room in Erickson, but it does have its own common room and a bathroom that is, unlike Chesapeake, bigger than a closet. Both the bedrooms, the common room, and the bathroom are invadvertantly accessorized in pastel shades, down to the lamps and shower curtains. It looks nice, but I think my Aragorn poster ruins this effect.

Pat and Biting Chris (who should not be confused with Malfean Chris, or Chris K, aka "Brian's Chris") happen to coincidentally share an apartment, so I helped them unpack also, and move furniture around to optimize space in the apartment singles. This is like squeezing blood from a stone. Tagged around after Jose and Brian K, who share a room in Erickson, like some sort of heirs to the Kay-Niall-Jeremy Ericksonian throne. It is, of course, not the same room, but since all rooms in one building look alike, it certainly feels like they've picked up where Kay, Niall and Jeremy left off. Have made various other social calls, including to Will M and On My Hall Andrew (He no longer lives in my hall this year, but this is a name I've given him to distinguish him from Andrew D and P).

A funny story goes here; I was keeping Pat company as he was working the cashier at Late Night, and this girl came in, panicked to the point of hyperventilating, that she had accidentally taken bread from the dining hall, and wanted to pay us three dollars, (I suppose to salve her guilt over accidentally stealing). Pat reassured her by invoking the unwritten truce between the resident student body and the dining hall, passed down though oral tradition, generation to generation, from a time immemorial; that unless anyone saw her stealing, it wasn't actually stealing. I don't think she was very convinced even then, very desperately wanting us to not think her some sort of criminal. Eventually, we persuaded her to keep her three bucks.

Ahhh... freshmen.

Will go now: have class at 8 am tomorrow.

My classes tomorrow are Roman history, Intermediate Macroeconomics (which I've read ahead by about four chapters on), and Advanced Exposition. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have Women in Ancient Greece, Creative Essay Writing, and Ancient Greek History. I'm majoring in econ, stealthily. Well, until I've got Intermediate Micro and Macro, the prereqs for the advanced classes, out of the way, there's not much I can do in that subject anyway.

Ancient Studies is my declared minor.