My first day of school... again.

This article was worth a link. It talks about Taiwanese coffeehouses adding sea salt to their drinks and whatnot. It's curious, but did someone miss the memo on Starbucks's seasonal offerings? They had sea salt this winter to sprinkle on top of the foam for some of the drinks. I can't remember what, but I know Edith concocted some variation on the signature hot chocolate, and she sprinkled some sea salt on it. It was darn tastey, too. I don't see what's so shocking. It'd be different if we were reverting to something like the Native American cocoa recipe or something. Anyway, read the article, and I'll keep my eyes out this summer for a 85C Bakery while I'm back in the Middle Kingdom.

Today was the first day of school (my 21st, if you're keeping tab), and I only have to tell one prof to call me "Trace" so that was an improvement. I guess it dimishes the effect a little when you understand that I had to tell one of my profs to call me 龙霓 and then I had to explain which character my given name is, and then we discussed the top and bottom parts of it for the class. (fyi: the top means rain, the bottom is the traditional way to write "er" 儿, the sound of which Beijingers are so incredibly fond) My Chinese prof this semester is our first tenure-tracked Chinese prof here at UCA, and he previously worked at UNLV. His English is really good (though he called it a "tennis bat" today...) and he seems genuinely congenial. However, I must say, he is from southern China, and so his accent is different from the garbled, "n"-dropping, non-jaw-moving, "rrrr"-slinging northern accent of which I call myself a student. He changes sh- to s- and zh- to z- and says "zheli" instead of "zher." We'll accomodate each other, especially since I'll be living in "zheli" land this summer.

Stage Makeup seems like it will be a lot of fun. We have to buy a crapload of supplies (btw, Spell check didn't bat an eye at the word crapload. Lol.) and they will cost a bit, but there is no book, so that's good. I actually don't have to buy any books this semester. Did the "Hallelujah Chorus" just sound in anyone else's head? The class appears to cover makeup schemes for the following: normal faces, middle age, old age, gender reversal, drag queens (entitled, I kid you not "Viva Glam!"), gore (in 3D!), death/diseases, character-specific, and one of our choice. It should be fun. My friend Bekah B. is in there with me, and she tells me to not worry my little head about Viva Glam! because she has the perfect eyelashes for it. I will here indicate that I am taking the class because it seems relevant for filmmaking in the future, I like to keep a toe in the theatre department, and I need the hours. I mean, how many drag pageants can a person win?

Script Analysis remains to be seen. We watched the first 20 minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey today and talked about what makes stories good, and thus what the essentials of a script are. This may be a good class, maybe not. I have to have it to move forward in my major, so here I go.

Time for a new episode of The Office.

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