I'm typing this from the PC lab in college. It turns out that there are new computers here, too; Pentium III processors, 128 meg of memory... but, oddly, only Win95. I'd have expected Win98 at least. Still, the one I'm using right now is speedy and stuff, and even equipped with a DVD drive, although I'm not sure why they bothered with that. Either they're anticipating that they'll become prevalent soon (which seems quite possible), or somebody's getting a heck of a tax writeoff.

Oh, and IntelliMouse pointing devices, which may be the one thing Microsoft does really well. Unfortunately, they also have all the stupid Win95 keys on the Dell keyboard, but you can't have everything. Besides, the feel and response are great; wonderfully firm and springy. Much better than the iMac keyboards in the Mac lab.

Anyway, the Tuesday class conundrum has been resolved! Which would probably be a more interesting statement had you known that there had been a Tuesday class conundrum in the first place. I alluded to it here, although I'd forgotten the actual subject matter of one of the choices... in a nutshell, I was signed up for two classes on Tuesdays, of which I intended to keep one: a drama course in the afternoon, and a course in International Politics at night. The latter would have filled my last core requirement (aside from physical education), but took place at the same time as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Buffy is safe. I attended both classes yesterday, and the decision turned out to be quite clear. The drama course is going to be one of the easiest A's I've ever gotten... but at least I'll be reading a bunch of plays I've been meaning to read, and it shouldn't be too painfully boring. I'm trying to convince myself that it might even be nice to have it as a break, given everything else I'm supposed to be doing.

The first caller wanted me to switch local phone carriers. As it happens, I have a very good calling plan with Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic, formerly NYNEX, formerly New York Telephone, formerly "the phone company"), which gives me unlimited local and regional calls for a flat rate. Given the high quantity of local calls I make, this ends up being substantially cheaper than any other deal I'm aware of.

But Telemarketer #1 wouldn't take "no" for an answer, and wouldn't budge from his script and listen to what I was saying. Which I can't stand. I don't mind telemarketers so much in general -- there, but for the need of speech therapy, go I, I figure -- but if they don't listen... grr. So he didn't last long.

Telemarketer #2, on the other hand, was offering a change in my long distance plan. (Or, more accurately, a change to a long distance plan; I hadn't had one at all until now. Instead, I've relied on 10-10-321 and 10-10-220.) Which was nothing new, except that, for the first time, it was a plan that actually made sense for me. And he listened to what I had to say, dropped the local service suggestion as soon as I mentioned my calling plan, answered all my questions, even those concerning the fine print, and when all was said and done, it became clear that it really was worth it. So I signed up.

The ironic twist is that it turned out that the two telemarketers were representing different divisions of the same parent company.

It's clear from the syllabus, however, that this is going to take a lot of time and effort, not just in painting stuff in class and for homework, but also in keeping a daily sketch diary. I don't know precisely what that'll involve, though; I'll find out all the details this week.

We're given a choice of using oils or acrylics, at least in part so that students who already have the supplies for one or the other can use 'em here. I'm going with acrylics, as that's what I used in 2-D Design three semesters back.

Sunday, I went forth and bought the majority of the art supplies on the list. After which I went to the family home in Woodmere, for what was billed as a thanksgiving meal on the first anniversary of The Crash, given that most of us survived the thing. It also served double-duty as the first anniversary of my grandfather's death, of course, for which there was a... I don't know how to translate "Siyum" across cultural lines. "The completion of the study of a portion of the Talmud in his memory" is about the best I can do.

(This is using the Jewish calendar, which had an extra month this past year, being a leap year. If you find that statement confusing, you might want to check out Clio's explanation of the Jewish calendar.)

Oh, and some stranger is getting my phone calls now, as I signed up for this service that's supposed to provide free voice-mail when I'm on the phone, but it looks as if somebody screwed up, as my calls are being redirected to some human, rather than my mailbox. I kinda pity the guy, whoever he is...