Merry Christmas from us here at Jeety’s Joint!

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy holiday and new year. I’ll certainly be back by mid-January, if not sooner. Until then, enjoy yourselves and see you soon.

I have no desire to study for finals at this particular moment… which is pretty much every moment… but anyway, I thought I’d spend a little time at da Joint this afternoon. Indeed, it is finals week here at Texas. Well, sort of–for some reason ours start in the middle of the week and overlap into the next week… Luckily though, I’m done on Saturday and fly home that night. So Monday and Tuesday are dead days, where you’re supposed to… do work and study and stuff, I guess? Sort of ridiculous, if you ask me.

Anyway, with Christmas right around the corner, I thought I’d hook you guys up. I’ve spent the last 2o years of my life (or um, mostly this weekend) compiling the best Christmas songs out there. Now of course these lists always come under close scrutiny and everything but since it’s my list… it is correct and should not be challenged. So anyway, I’ve put together a “cd’s worth” of songs for you all to go out and buy, steal or borrow (I have all of these, I think, so you know… if you want them, I can hooks you up). Here we go:

Jeety’s Ultimate Christmas Mix Hits Compilation CD list of songs (or JUCMHCCDLOS, for short):

1. Christmas All Over Again — Tom Petty: We start off with a nice uptempo number (When did they stop calling songs “numbers”? The ’40s? Okay, just checking.)

2. Santa Claus is Coming to Town — Bruce Springsteen: Another rockin’ jam. This was a huge hit for The Boss in Germany under the title “Sinter Claus Com Das Village.”

3. Have A Holly Jolly Christmas — Burl Ives: This one goes out to you traditionalists. A classic song from everyone’s favorite Communist. Oh, the irony…

4. What Christmas Means to Me — Stevie Wonder: This is a great song, used by… you know, Gap or Old Navy or one of those pretty much every year. Does Stevie write his songs in braile?

5. Little Saint Nick — The Beach Boys: Another great one. They used this in a Coke commercial last year… the one where the baby polar bear makes friends with the gaggle of penguins, rather than tearing into them as he might in real life. ‘Tis the Season!

6. O Come, O Come Emmanuel — Sufjan Stevens: A classic song with a contemporary twist. It’s excellent.

7. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas — Coldplay: This one is listed as Coldplay but I’m pretty sure it’s just Chris Martin playing at the piano. It’s really, really good though. If you hadn’t noticed, we’ve slowed the tempo a bit recently.

8. Love Came Down at Christmas — Shawn Colvin: Okay, this is actually my favorite Christmas song ever. It’s unbelievable… and sung in a round-fashion toward the end… Wonderful.

9. Merry Christmas Baby — Bruce Springsteen: The Boss is back and this time with yet another exciting tune. He gets the crowd involved in this one, too. (Actually, both of his are live, I believe.)

10. Sleigh Ride — Ella Fitzgerald: I got this one from the Elf Soundtrack (2nd best Christmas movie, next to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation). A classic, as well.

11. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) — Deathcab for Cutie: Unbelievably, they do a better job with this song than U2… I find that disturbing, but still, that should vouch for how good it is.

12. Come On! Let’s Boogy to the Elf Dance! — Sufjan Stevens: I’m not sure what to say about this one other than it’s sort of odd but cool at the same time. I think he mixes at least two different songs into this one.

13. Christmas Don’t Be Late — Alvin & the Chipmunks: No Christmas collection is complete without this one. “I still want a hula-hoop” is the greatest line from any Christmas song ever.

14. All I Want for Christmas is You — Mariah Carey: Alright, she’s on the list, sue me. It’s not “Glitter” at least? You have to admit that this is a good Christmas song, though? ….right?

15. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree — Brenda Lee: We finish up on another classic–a staple in any good Christmas movie or TV show.

Well, that’s the list. I’m sure some of you are disappointed that your favorites aren’t on there, well… tough. This is the only correct list out there, so… maybe next time? That’s what this Season is all about, anyway: one person being right and everyone else dealing with it. That’s my feeling when picking out presents, at least. Also, I feel I need to add a couple honorable mentions to this list…

*Whatever that song was that the string ensemble played at the Christmas Eve service that was unrecognizable to human ears. Special props go out to the Thomas goon and his mad String Bass skills.
*Whatever song that the Diaz woman sang at another Christmas Eve service… it was an Amy Grant cover, something about Mary… It was… so good..? The best part of that whole story is the fact that she went up to Mrs. Borza after the service and said something along the lines of “Yeah, most people don’t know how good of a singer I am.” Priceless.

That’s it for now. If I decide grades aren’t important at some other point during finals week, then I’ll be back!

Again, everyone’s favorite Communist caroler… You take away that little Frosty figurine and it’s freakin Stalin standing there. Could that beanie GET any more Soviet?? And finally, this AWESOME church sign I found… I swear to you, the Internet never disappoints when it comes to the true meaning of Christmas. Mmm, the fear of eternal damnation has me feeling all warm inside!

My, my, my… We’re six days into December and I’ve not yet updated the Joint… this is most unfortunate. The worst part is, I’ve had things to write about, but no time! Being busy is for the birds (alliteration!), my friends. Oh well, what can you do? ‘Tis the season, I’m afraid. I’m pretty sure around this time last year I made some claim about how ridiculous it is that schools give final exams so close to the birth of baby Jesus–I’m sticking to that assessment. Also, the other day I was thinking… If we lived in the southern hemisphere, I bet the whole school calendar would be different. As it is now, it makes zero sense. Here’s what they should do: start the school year at… the beginning of the year! Imagine that. Or, you know, sometime shortly after the beginning of the year. That way, they have school all through their winter (June, July, August) and then their BIG break is like November, December, January. This eliminates all stress around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admit it, the idea is genius. The only problem is that since we basically own the southern hemisphere, they have no originality and do whatever we do. So they’re stuck. I should also point out that I’ve not looked any of this up and if they DO work on a different schedule in places like Australia, then… good.

Anyway, that’s not why I’m writing today. (Though it IS one of the world’s most important issues). On Saturday, 049 Moore-Hill had an unexpected visitor. Bono? Stevie Nicks? Jerry Seinfeld? Jesus? Yes, but that’s not what I’m writing about either. As Eliot and I were watching the Longhorns lose yet another basketball game, we saw something fall down into our window well. Maybe saw is the wrong verb… “sensed,” perhaps. Cause neither of us were exactly sure what was in there. As we inched closer to the window, we saw it: a squirrel, running around like a chicken with its head cut off (if you can mix rodents with poultry metaphors). He didn’t know how, but that squirrel wanted OUT! I’ve included the estimated trajectory of the squirrel as he plummeted into our window well and consequently, our hearts. (The next Hallmark Hall of Fame Classic Movie)

So, after the bewilderment wore off, I went up to the front desk to inform that that a squirrel had attempted suicide by window well in our room and was unable to get himself out. Once the laughter died down (and I believe it was laughing AT, not with…), the front desk guy and his friend Cat (meow!) came down to the Dungeon, literally the only place where this could happen, to check it out. So, they left and after probably a half an hour a so, Cat (meow!) came back to our room to inform us that the rescue attempt was beginning. They had called Animal Control to check how they should attempt this and here’s what the guy told them: “You need to get a box and string so you can lower it and pull it up. Put nuts in the box to entice the squirrel, or he won’t go in.” [This is a dramatization based on what I figure the Animal Control guy said, based on Cat's (meow!) description of the conversation.] So the guys (they also got the head RA in on this action) got one of those mail boxes… the kind that are in the bottoms of the big blue mail boxes out in front of the post-office. They’re whitish and have two handles on the sides. They looped the string through these handles and chose the pistachio as their nut of choice to entice the squirrel. As they lowered the box, the squirrel, who had been hiding behind our ladder and was trembling for a solid half hour, began freaking OUT again. As the box got closer and closer to the bottom, the squirrel began to repel off the wall… I guess he decided to hide the fact that he was incredibly experienced in the art of spelunking. From the floor to the right side wall to the middle rung of the ladder, the squirrel literally flew through the air in rapid movements that could only be described as supersonic. From the middle rung, the squirrel launched himself up and out of the well, as if he could have done this all along. Ridiculous.

The guys standing at the top moved quickly to avoid the squirrel, insane and probably near cardiac arrest. I mean, I didn’t care that he just decided to reveal his ability to get out of there all along until the pistachios started falling into the well… But I guess if I had spent a half hour talking to Animal Control and builting this contraption, I would be a little annoyed. Maybe the squirrel acutally couldn’t get out until he felt like the postal box was being lowered to eat him. You know, like those moms that lift cars off their babies that you always hear about. (Seriously, we need to stop using this example because I have NEVER heard of it actually happening. Ever.)

Anyway, that is story one. Story two involves me going to the Undergraduate Writing Center (UWC) to attempt tutoring. This is the culmination of a semester’s worth of work in a Rhetoric class, training me to be a tutor who is assigned to a class next semester. But to get practical experience before next semester, we were assigned to go to the UWC. When I got there, they told me I was in the queue and to go to the break room to wait to be called. Well, how am I supposed to know where the break room is? This quesiton popped into my head when I was about halfway there, of course. So after wandering into some woman’s office, she pointed me in the right direction. Thank goodness there was one of the girls from my class in there, or the shock would have probably killed me.

What shock, you ask? Well, I think it’s a form of culture shock. You see, these people who work at the UWC… well, they’re a different breed than you and I. For starters, they don’t speak like normal humans. Everything must be said in a serious, half-whisper tone. Furthermore, you know how when we talk we say things like, “Whatcha doin’?” No, no… there is none of that. First of all, in the land of writing mentors, there are NO contractions of any kind. They are strictly forbidden. “Doing” is the proper way to say the word and, well, blending “what are you” into one word… I mean, honestly, that is absurd in their world.

But that’s not worst of it… not even close. After I had been there for a while, the break room started to fill up and I began to understand why the University has decided to cut their funding… They hire these people to tutor and if no one’s there, they just sit in the back and (I will be making this argument:) ruin their lives. How, you ask? It’s their conversation… We had a 2-part conversation that lasted a total of 45 minutes. The topic? “Can you try to try something?” They managed, with all their little rhetorical idiosynchrisies and odd English-major behavoirisms, to fill 45 minutes with this drivel. “Well, if you’re trying to try something, doesn’t that imply you’re just trying it?” “Okay, but what if try to try sushi for the first time, but for some reason you can’t?” “Well, I think that’s taking the word try and changing its meaning” AHHHHHH! STOP!!!! (My internal dialogue, if you didn’t pick up on that.) And honestly, they were enjoying this conversation. I mean there were giggles and outbursts and smiling all over the break room. It was unreal.

So, I went and did some tutoring. It went fine, whatever. Not really important here. But when I got back, the conversation had (Praise Jesu!) changed subject. Unfortunately, this one was potentially more awkard than the first. This time, they were going around the room asking everyone what makes them weird. It started out sort of normal… I mean, for them, that is. This one guy said he had no tolerance for some type of photography I had never heard of before… One girl said she had been dating some guy for almost 2 years and never heard his answering machine message until last week. Okay… weird, but not outlandish. We get to the next girl and she felt it would be okay to say, in a public setting, that she can’t eat potato chips in public because when she does, she likes to chew them, spit them out on a napkin and then eat them again. (!!!!!!) Amazingly, this actually blew all of THEM away too. At first, I sort of figured they wouldn’t have any problem with this, but… they restored my faith in humanity, if only for a brief moment. The girl explained that the saliva gives the chips a sweet taste or something insane. I think I might have passed out temporarily, so when she was explaining her logic, I might have missed some things.

Naturally, I was next. On the scale of things, nothing I said was going to satisfy these people. I mean, I admit to my own weirdness, but this is another league. Knowing that nothing was going to be good enough I said… “Well, I’m not from Texas, which usually blows poeple away.” They responded, “Well, it depends on where you’re from.” “Near Pittbsurgh.” No, that’s not enough… So they moved on and after a while, I came up with my semi-color blindness or whatever that is that I have. They seemed a little more OK with this, but still… you could tell they were disappointed. Sadly, “the new guy” didn’t seem to be as ridiculously weird as the rest of them… But that was alright with me.

The application for working at the writing center…