Day Two - The Anticipated Return

Nothing like suspense to capture an audience, right? Right? Errr...sorry, I promise to update this site more often for now on. Okay, now that we got that awkward moment over with, we can get to the good stuff.

Event of the Day
You know the stereotypical art teacher.; the one who asks you to express your inner aura, or to dance like you felt on the best day of your life, or to sing to your clay pot? Well, that stereotypical art teacher is now my African dance teacher. African dance? Well, that's a story in and of itself. Anyhow, on any other day this post would probably be a subtly cynical regurgitation of her insistent demands to feel "my African self." However, circumstances (that will be more fully explained in the third section of this post) changed my dance class today. The two requirements of the class are to attend, and to attend with a positive attitude. Heading into my class at 7:00 at night with anger and heartbreak being my two strongest emotions, I had a feeling I couldn't possibly fulfill both requirements. My predictions held true through the first part of class, but the zaniness of my stereotypical dance teacher and the dancing began to take over. Believe it or not, it is hard to shimmy and frown at the same time. The same holds true when you're doing the "parting the tall grass" move or the "throw the fishing nets" move. My frown was removed for the rest of the class period when our teacher told us that we needed to think of friends who needed "spiritual healing" for the next dance. Three of my friends in that class (two girls and a guy I just barely met) pointed to me, targeting me as their spiritually broken friend. My friends' recognition of my pain coupled with the silliness of the whole situation was too much. I broke into my patented half-smile, and decided to forget about past events for the rest of the class period. I spend most of my African dance classes embarrassed and skeptical, but who knows, maybe I am starting to find my African self.

Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger
Sorry about the seriousness of my last post. Seriously, that is too serious for my strictly-unserious goals for this mostly unserious blog. I will try to make it up for you with this new section. At the request of my readership, I will incorporate the mighty Stephen Colbert's popular segment into my humble web log. My tip of the hat goes to [insert drum roll] Stephen Colbert. I know Colbert's show is always amazing, but lately Stephen has been on fire. Just look at the interviews he has been racking up: Mike Wallace, "Papa Bear" Bill O'Reilly, and the reanimated corpse of Abraham Lincoln (I can't confirm the last one). If you've never had the opportunity to see the Colbert Report, you haven't lived people. Trust me. My Wag of the the Finger goes to...yep, you guessed it, bears. Why bears? Well, for one thing my idol Colbert is rather unfond of them. Also, what do they do besides sleep and kill things? The only thing that contributes less to American Society than bears is Hollywood, but the Lord of the Rings movies allow me to barely tolerate them. Bears have nothing going for them.
[edit: some people may feel that I tried to glorify Stephen Colbert and condemn bears as part of an elaborate attempt to keep the Colbert Report from suing me for copying part of their show. Obviously there is no truth to this. Go with your gut and you'll be able to see through the facts.]

That Other Gender
Wow. Generally, I would like to use this section to reveal how clueless I am in a humorous way. I can't stop this go-around from becoming a rant, though. There's a girl who I have had a crush on for a few years now. I always labeled her as a hopeless dream, but earlier this year, around Halloween, I decided to go for broke and I told her how I felt. She denied me, saying that I was too good of a friend (that phrase will certainly be the topic of a future "that other gender"). Well, I have tried to move on since then, but it's hard to be "just friends" after everything that has happened. Well, today, I went to hang out with her for a while, and she admitted that she had been dating two guys while she had been at college. Not only that, but she broke up with the first guy because he didn't communicate very well. Sorry, but does anyone see the irony here? Perhaps said girl could have "communicated" that she was going out with someone, and I wouldn't have made a fool of myself on Halloween. After I left, I was forced to confront the years I spent thinking about her. Was it all a waste of time? I spent years thinking she was worth all of it, and now I had to confront the fact that I probably should have moved on a long time ago. Balance that with the conflicting feelings I still have for her, and you could guess it was a confusing day for me. I don't mean this as a denouncement of her, she is a great person - her greatest fault being that she is so amazing she can't be with me. I also know that there is a gargantuan back story that would make this small snippet difficult to understand, but this day was more for the writer than the reader, if you catch my drift. I feel better writing this down, but I still have no idea what I'm going to do with that other gender.