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Last year: My kitchen. I like the sound of that.) |
The subject of the four-hour-long tedious meeting turned out to be something I thought I might actually need to know some day. Unfortunately, it's not something that can be taught in four days, much less four hours - even with a really good teacher, which this fellow most decidedly is not.
It started with a set of handouts for an "exercise." Both the first page of the exercise and the screen on the projector had a list of the contents of the packet. Looking through the packet, I had one page twice, and I seemed to be missing another. Well, the instructor told us that we had the one page twice because it was too advanced for us, really, so he'd done it for us so we could at least get a feel for how it should end up. That was fine. But he didn't missing the missing page.
Another person brought it to his attention. He disagreed, saying it was in there. I spoke up, mentioning that I didn't have it, either. It actually turned into an argument. I tried re-phrasing the question several times. Either the slide saying we had the sheet was wrong or misphrased; or we didn't have the sheet. It finally turned out that the slide was misphrased and that what we had were pieces that could be compiled into the page the slide said we should have, and that that compilation was in fact the next exercise.
But I didn't figure that out until after almost ten minutes, getting more and more frustrated and finally - much to my own embarassment, starting to cry.
I hate that. My physical reaction to anger is crying. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. But I can't shut it down, either. The best I can do is to pretend it's not happening.
It got worse when we actually tried to do the exercise. It didn't make any sense. He passed around another sheet with the answers, and it still didn't make any sense. I tried to ask how the answers had been arrived at, and - naturally - the instructor didn't understand my question and just made up something that had nothing to do with my confusion.
Finally, lunch arrived and they took a short break to pass it out. Since I was being very diet-careful, I'd brought my own lunch, and at this point I was vastly relieved at the ability to leave the building for a few minutes. I walked out into the parking lot, and screamed as loudly as I could.
It's been a very, very long time since I've been that frustrated. I've shouted in arguments, but the sheer necessity for a primal, angry scream hasn't come over me in at least ten years.
I walked the rest of the way back to my building, microwaved my soup, and started to head back. On the way, I encountered my dad, who'd caught a glimpse of me as I left the meeting room. We stood in the rain and he agreed with me that the classes are stupid and pointless (which is saying something, since he's in charge of making sure everyone takes the classes) and that the instructor is a grade-A asshole entirely incapable of admitting when he's made a mistake or apologizing for anything. He even tried to convince me to skip the rest of the meeting.
I get more than my short temper from my dad, though. I also inherited a healthy dose of stubborn. I went back. Finally, on my own, I figured out what was going on with the original exercise, and came to the conclusion that it was a badly-built exercise, and that it wasn't trying to teach us what I'd thought it had been trying to teach us.
By the time we got to the next exercise, I had more questions, but decided I wouldn't get satisfactory answers from the Asshole anyway. I spent the last hour and a half of the meeting staring blankly at the design on someone's shirt. If I ever get promoted to the point where I'll need to know this stuff (unlikely, at this point, eh?) then I'll just learn it from scratch at that point - pretty much like I would be doing anyway if I'd paid attention.
The evening was nice, though. Matt and I wound up meeting Chuck and another couple (we didn't know about the other couple until they arrived, and had to switch tables) for dinner at Don Pablo's.
I'd managed to be very good on my diet all day, and so I actually didn't have to deprive myself at dinner. I had a couple of nachos before the meal, my favorite Don Pablo's dish (Chicken Parilla, which happens to be a low-fat dinner, but I like it because it's probably the only thing I've ever seen at a Mexican restaurant that wasn't even a little bit spicy), and even dessert - the famous Apple Pie Skillet with the marvelous brandy-butter sauce that I'm addicted to - without blowing it!
I'm pretty proud of myself for managing that, but I don't want to do it on anything like a regular basis; by the time we got to the restaurant, I was really hungry.
Don Pablo's is back in my good graces as a restaurant; the service was still slow, but since we were with friends and we never had to wait too long for drink refills, that wasn't too bad. And the food was excellent, and they got our orders right.
After dinner, we walked across the parking lot to the Barnes and Noble, where I bought a few books that had been recommended to me. I also wandered over to the art section, where I hoped to find some abstract coloring books (I'm not sure how to describe them better than that, but I had something fairly specific in mind). I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did see several books on the fundamentals of drawing.
With a lot of effort, I can turn out a half-decent sketch, and I've wanted to take a drawing class for years and years to improve my results and learn how to do it easier. I almost took one in college, but at the time, art was my brother's thing and I didn't want to intrude on it. (It's still his thing, but his specialty is 3-D artwork, not drawings or paintings, so I wouldn't be stepping on his toes even if I turned out to be good.) Also, the materials are fairly expensive, and I was pretty much broke and trying desperately to conserve my college fund so it would stretch. So I didn't take any classes. Off and on for the past few years, I've thought about trying to take a class, but it would have to be an evening or weekend class, and I wasn't sure if I could really do it.
But I flipped through a few of these books, and one of them appealed to me. Divided into sections by subject (Life Drawing, Landscapes, Still Life, etc.), it talked a little about the basics, and then had a series of classroom-style exercises and lessons. Each exercise came with complete instructions, a list of necessary materials, the point of the exercise, a time limit, and questions for consideration. If I could learn from a book, this seemed a pretty good book for the job.
The first few lessons don't require anything any more elaborate than paper and pencil, so I'll give them a try, and if I feel confidant enough, maybe I'll go to the art store in the next few weeks and pick up the other materials the book recommends. (The most important and often-used materials are listed all together in the very front of the book.)
Anyway, I think it will be fun, and if I turn out anything halfway decent, I'll be sure to let you know.
Word of the Day: thaumaturgy - the performance of miracles; magic
It looks like Matt and I are going to be joining K.T.'s AD&D game. She had to move it from Sunday, and I suggested, since she was complaining about having to come up with a new plot for the Heroes game (and Kevin doesn't like his Heroes character anyway) that it could take the place of the Heroes game.
I have to confess I'm a little apprehensive. K.T. is an excellent GM - much better than I am for a long campaign - so I'm not worried about her... But I'm concerned about some of the other players. A guy I've only met a few times before called John is started at the same time (I think) as Matt and I. As I said, I've only met him a few times before, so I'm not ready to pass judgement, but those few times he did manage to rub me the wrong way. He's otaku (a Jap-anime freak) in a big way, and while that's fine (though I'm not that interested) he at least used to be so strongly opinionated on the topic that he couldn't allow anyone else to hold opinions that differed from his own. I hope that's a matter of the strength of his fandom, and not a general personality trait.
And Joel is in this game, too. I haven't gamed with Joel since he dropped out of the Werewolf game, but K.T. told me his improvement has been pretty minimal. He's playing a fighter/mage with much more interest in swordplay than in thaumaturgy. I could stand that if he'd embrace it and role-play it - say, a fighter whose mage skills keep cropping up and bothering him - but I suspect he's just dragging his mage class around like a broken and badly-set leg until he gets to be a high enough level that the combat spells are devastatingly powerful.
I'm hopeful, too - from what K.T.'s told me about Amanda, she sounds like a really fun person to talk to and hang out with, and while she's a novice roleplayer, she's enjoying it. So if my worries about John come to naught, and Joel manages to avoid irritating me unduly, I hope I'll really enjoy this game.
I've decided to give it three or four gaming sessions - maybe to the end of the first long plot-arc, depending on how long it takes - and then, if I'm not having fun, I'll drop out. There's no point to going to a game I don't enjoy, and my absence (and Matt's, if he decided to drop out with me) wouldn't leave K.T. with too small a party to bother with. But I hope I really enjoy it. I'm trying to think of a character concept - all the standard bases are already covered, so I'm trying to come up with something really outrageous and off-the-wall and fun. If you have any ideas, let me know.
- between books
Current Projects:
- nothing
Diet Progress: 9 lbs lost
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