Back to School, in More Ways than One

So, the Summer of Brian came to an end – in short, it was extremely relaxing, emotionally invigorating, and in some ways, eye opening.  It was everything I needed it to be.

I can’t remember (and I’m not going to go back and look) if I explained why this summer was so significant to me.  I finished a two year masters’ degree program, with the last year including a stint as a full-time long-term substitute teacher and a full-time graduate student.  While it wore me out, it led to me getting a job teaching English to high school freshmen and sophomores.  I ended up getting the job the Thursday before Memorial Day so I had the entire summer to relax and go to a whole bunch of concerts.

The first week (well, four days of school and countless professional workshops, meetings, etc) have gone well and the transition has gone as well as I hoped.  Hopefully, once things “get back to normal” (whatever that means), I’ll start writing more often.  Today, I have two quick things to share with you.

The first, appropriately, brings me back to when I was in high school.  I was amused this morning when I saw that Ben Folds Five will be reuniting to perform 1999’s The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner for a one-off engagement.  First, I think it’s safe to say that my opinion of Ben Folds peaked around this time.  I didn’t get the chance to see him with the Five, but I remember the second time seeing him perform solo being really excited when he played a bunch of old songs (and Elliott Smith’s “Say Yes”).  It’s not fair to say that I think Folds has lost the plot with each subsequent release (I was into Rockin the Suburbs), but rather that I’ve become less interested as the ballads became blander and the humor moved further towards bawdy banality from biting subversion.  That, and I think his collaborators Darren Jesse and Robert Sledge made the arrangement more interesting.

I haven’t listened to Reinhold in ages, but I think I might give it a spin tonight to see if I still enjoy it.  I’ll let you know.

The second item of note (more of a postscript, really) is that I’m writing this in Google’s Chrome browser.  So far, it seems quick, especially with Google’s products (Gmail, Calendar, Reader, etc) and offers lots of browsing space due to its minimal design.  It will be interesting to see if it runs faster on an older machine (like my school issued laptop).  Let me know if you try it.