05/26/08
Okay it's been over a week since the first class and the only entry into my writing log has been the smoothing out of something that happened in class. I have no creative energy right now it seems. 'too many real world issues to deal with. Whine cry wah blah. So I've finally determined that if I can't wrtie well or can't write creatively, I'm going to start by just writing period.
What comes next is pretty much stream of consciousness pablum.
Wings just scored a goal....uh oh
franzen took a sucker punch in the face. Why do teams have to get dirty like that when they are getting their asses handed to them?
Been a real up and down emotional time lately. The more I know the less I know. House, life, work all out of control right now. I'll get a handle on the work stuff in the coming week. I'll get a handle on the home stuff in the next two weeks. The emotional stuff I've been working on for a year. The more things change in that regard the more confused I get. How come I feel like I get wiser every day in matters of work and in matters of work and self, but iin matters of the heart I just get stupider and stupider?
I feel so much love and so much hate sometimes within split seconds of each other. Maybe even at the same time. I want to die. I want to live. I want to be better. I want to live a “normal” day without being a “normal” person.
I want time to ride. I want time to read. I want energy to think. I should probably quit whining.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Writing Project Flotsam Pt 2
Warning: I haven't had time to edit or proof most of this writing project stuff. A lot of it is simply journaling, free thought and etc. Maybe I'll feel like painting some of these turds later, but not right now.
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06/18/08
Marathon Writing pt 2: Presque Isle
I'm sitting on a rock facing the ore dock as a freighter is slowly making it's way in to unload. To the left of the docks is the Superior Dome. First of all, great name. Isn't there anybody more imaginitive that could come up with a better name. I know it is unofficially called the Yooper Dome, but I'm not sure I like that either.
Damn thing looks like a UFO landed. Does anybody think that is a cool looking building from the outside? It's covered in a gray tarp FFS. It's like that neighbor that is going to put siding on his house in 2001 and in 2008 he still has the Tyvek up.
Left of me are rocks from the lake. I wonder how many years they had to take on their journey for the tides to finally bring them to the beach. Were they already there and the erosion just exposed them to the light?
Right of me are more lake rocks, followed by sand with many gulls flying over the masts of multiple boats in the harbor.
Oh, black smoke is really pumping from the freighter now. They must be throttling something back or they are starting some machinery that helps them get rid of their load. It's trickled back to white smoke now so I'm betting they started some piece of machinery that I can't see. I had a diesel Ford Tempo once used to make black smoke like that when I started it and then as the engine warmed up the smoke would fade to gray and then white then to an invisible exhaust.
I had a lot of fun with that car in high school. The thing got almost forty miles to the gallon long before forty miles to the gallon was hip or cool.
To call it a sluggish car is an understatement though. It was a manually shifted five speed and if you wanted to pass someone you had to slingshot around them. You had to fade way back from the car in front of you, downshift and hammer the accelerator when you anticipated the road in front of you would be clear enough and straight enough to pass. If by the time you were nosing the other guy's bumper and the road ahead turned out not to be clear, you had to fade back and try again next time. It was rusty and red and really physically unappealing. I had two choices in high school. Let the the kids make fun of me for what I drove or embrace the vehicle for the awkward, ungainly, ball of shortcomings it was.
I would pull up to stoplight and rev my engine next to some really hot Mustang or Trans Am and offer to race for pinks. They would look at me and laugh. Only the truly dopey old people or the ones that took themselves too seriously didn't get the joke which only made me think they were the joke. I mean that car might be able to peel out if I threw it in reverse, got it up to 35 then dropped it back into first and that's still a maybe. I tend to think that tactic just would have broken something in the driveline though.
Then when I was asked to drive to a party I would arch my eyebrows and tell people which ones I thought were good enough and which ones didn't deserve to ride in my Tempo. That was usually accompanied by some eyebrow arching and a sarcastic mulling frown.
When I asked a girl out I would often list the Tempo as one of my strengths and reasons why she should date me. “Zee-ro to 55 in about a minute and a half given a good tailwind and a slight downhill slope. You need that kind of excitement,” I would tell the girl. That would get a smile. I lived for the smile from a pretty girl. Lived and died.
Because I endorsed my embarassmentmobile, it became a running joke. Not the bad kind of “I'm ripping on you joke”, but the good kind that everybody was in on with me. Soon the other kids were asking to ride in my car and telling me what a sweet ride I had.
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06/18/08
Marathon Writing pt 2: Presque Isle
I'm sitting on a rock facing the ore dock as a freighter is slowly making it's way in to unload. To the left of the docks is the Superior Dome. First of all, great name. Isn't there anybody more imaginitive that could come up with a better name. I know it is unofficially called the Yooper Dome, but I'm not sure I like that either.
Damn thing looks like a UFO landed. Does anybody think that is a cool looking building from the outside? It's covered in a gray tarp FFS. It's like that neighbor that is going to put siding on his house in 2001 and in 2008 he still has the Tyvek up.
Left of me are rocks from the lake. I wonder how many years they had to take on their journey for the tides to finally bring them to the beach. Were they already there and the erosion just exposed them to the light?
Right of me are more lake rocks, followed by sand with many gulls flying over the masts of multiple boats in the harbor.
Oh, black smoke is really pumping from the freighter now. They must be throttling something back or they are starting some machinery that helps them get rid of their load. It's trickled back to white smoke now so I'm betting they started some piece of machinery that I can't see. I had a diesel Ford Tempo once used to make black smoke like that when I started it and then as the engine warmed up the smoke would fade to gray and then white then to an invisible exhaust.
I had a lot of fun with that car in high school. The thing got almost forty miles to the gallon long before forty miles to the gallon was hip or cool.
To call it a sluggish car is an understatement though. It was a manually shifted five speed and if you wanted to pass someone you had to slingshot around them. You had to fade way back from the car in front of you, downshift and hammer the accelerator when you anticipated the road in front of you would be clear enough and straight enough to pass. If by the time you were nosing the other guy's bumper and the road ahead turned out not to be clear, you had to fade back and try again next time. It was rusty and red and really physically unappealing. I had two choices in high school. Let the the kids make fun of me for what I drove or embrace the vehicle for the awkward, ungainly, ball of shortcomings it was.
I would pull up to stoplight and rev my engine next to some really hot Mustang or Trans Am and offer to race for pinks. They would look at me and laugh. Only the truly dopey old people or the ones that took themselves too seriously didn't get the joke which only made me think they were the joke. I mean that car might be able to peel out if I threw it in reverse, got it up to 35 then dropped it back into first and that's still a maybe. I tend to think that tactic just would have broken something in the driveline though.
Then when I was asked to drive to a party I would arch my eyebrows and tell people which ones I thought were good enough and which ones didn't deserve to ride in my Tempo. That was usually accompanied by some eyebrow arching and a sarcastic mulling frown.
When I asked a girl out I would often list the Tempo as one of my strengths and reasons why she should date me. “Zee-ro to 55 in about a minute and a half given a good tailwind and a slight downhill slope. You need that kind of excitement,” I would tell the girl. That would get a smile. I lived for the smile from a pretty girl. Lived and died.
Because I endorsed my embarassmentmobile, it became a running joke. Not the bad kind of “I'm ripping on you joke”, but the good kind that everybody was in on with me. Soon the other kids were asking to ride in my car and telling me what a sweet ride I had.
Thus Begins the Writing Project
The next several posts will come from a writing project I am doing this summer. Enjoy or revile as you will.
Updated 06/19/08
05/26/08
--this is a rehashing of a bud of an idea starting during the first class.
In my chair I sit. In my room I contemplate. Out of the corner of my eye I see the blackness that grease-like seeps out through the crevices of my life, piling up as it oozes from the niches before it tumbles over under the pressure of the increasing dark pushing in behind it. The piles grow and cascade, grow and cascade as more and more finds its way around into my room. Calmly, in my chair the chill warmth of the blackness slowly climbs, enveloping my legs and the legs of my chair. Absorbing the memories of knee surgeries and the pain of wanting to run away.
Unmoving I am increasingly submerged in the ebony. Thinking my thoughts. Being my nothing. I remain seated. The blackness swallows my lap as the magma flow continues. Urges long gone. Extinquished, denied, or fulfilled.
It licks my fingertips resting on the arms of my chair. Morasses of regret of things that have slipped through my hands. Regrets of those left untouched. More blackness, less light. It's inexorable. Unblinking, stil I sit.
It consumes my abdomen and gnaws its way up my chest. The heartaches. The forlornness. The unpatchable cracks. Still it feeds.
It has found its way around me. How long before it finds its way into me where it will stay. Where it will live until I die and when they bury me, my carcass will feed it so it can wait, hibernate, and grow until it finds its next host. I can no longer tell if the ooze is still rising around me or if I am sinking into it. It laps my chin. I wonder if I should stand.
Updated 06/19/08
05/26/08
--this is a rehashing of a bud of an idea starting during the first class.
In my chair I sit. In my room I contemplate. Out of the corner of my eye I see the blackness that grease-like seeps out through the crevices of my life, piling up as it oozes from the niches before it tumbles over under the pressure of the increasing dark pushing in behind it. The piles grow and cascade, grow and cascade as more and more finds its way around into my room. Calmly, in my chair the chill warmth of the blackness slowly climbs, enveloping my legs and the legs of my chair. Absorbing the memories of knee surgeries and the pain of wanting to run away.
Unmoving I am increasingly submerged in the ebony. Thinking my thoughts. Being my nothing. I remain seated. The blackness swallows my lap as the magma flow continues. Urges long gone. Extinquished, denied, or fulfilled.
It licks my fingertips resting on the arms of my chair. Morasses of regret of things that have slipped through my hands. Regrets of those left untouched. More blackness, less light. It's inexorable. Unblinking, stil I sit.
It consumes my abdomen and gnaws its way up my chest. The heartaches. The forlornness. The unpatchable cracks. Still it feeds.
It has found its way around me. How long before it finds its way into me where it will stay. Where it will live until I die and when they bury me, my carcass will feed it so it can wait, hibernate, and grow until it finds its next host. I can no longer tell if the ooze is still rising around me or if I am sinking into it. It laps my chin. I wonder if I should stand.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Spending My Time
As a teacher, one of my favorite classroom rants is on the topic of hurting others for the sake of hurting others.
Once in a while I'll hear someone discussing how a turtle was crossing the road so a student swerved his car off to the side of the road in order to crush the turtle.
This is apparently great entertainment for some. My ensuing classroom rant goes on and on discussing just how warped it is for some people to derive pleasure via the pain of other living creatures whether those creatures happen to be lower mammalian life forms or other human beings.
As usual, some get what I'm talking about and others just give me blank stares as I venture off into the statistics regarding how highly correlated cruelty to animals is with people who beat their spouses or become serial killers and all that good stuff.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a tree hugger. I eat meat. I don't have a problem with hunters or farmers so don't include me in that radical fringe PETA groupthink or anything.
Of course, cruelty to others is not something exclusive to high school students. I've run into plenty of adults who seem to derive pleasure from being cruel to other humans as well. Just simply ignoring the complete lack of moral development someone who calls himself an adult must have in order to find nothing better to do with his time than to try to create pain and havoc in a fellow human's life...that type of thinking is so foreign to me....so unrecognizable as anything that could possibly serve to better one's self...I don't know. I guess it just amazes me.
Why would someone get up in the morning and decide they need to cause an innocent person pain or discomfort? Our time on this earth is so very short and we have so little time to try to achieve higher levels of thinking and achieve some sort of inner peace so we can grow as individuals and grow spiritually. Is it really that hard to recognize that time spent on such petty endeavors that are soley practiced in order to make someone else's life less enjoyable does nothing, but set us back on our moral and emotional development?
I have hurt people in the past. There's no doubt about that. Never intentionally. Not that intent necessarily gives me a pass on the amount of blame I should take for my actions, but unless outrightly attacked by someone else, I honestly cannot remember the last time I tried to inflict any kind of pain on another individual. I don't see the point in doing it. I don't see what I gain from doing it, so I don't do it. I try very hard not to engage in thought processes and actions that do nothing to advance me as an individual, a father, a brother, a son...etc.
I'm nowhere near perfect, but it does occur to me that if more people on this earth spent more time in self-reflection and less time trying to lash out at others for real or perceived wrongs...or, in some cases, because the other has what he wants or, in other cases, for no reason whatsoever...well, this would just be a much better damn place to live wouldn't it?
I just don't know why it is so hard for people to "get" that.
Once in a while I'll hear someone discussing how a turtle was crossing the road so a student swerved his car off to the side of the road in order to crush the turtle.
This is apparently great entertainment for some. My ensuing classroom rant goes on and on discussing just how warped it is for some people to derive pleasure via the pain of other living creatures whether those creatures happen to be lower mammalian life forms or other human beings.
As usual, some get what I'm talking about and others just give me blank stares as I venture off into the statistics regarding how highly correlated cruelty to animals is with people who beat their spouses or become serial killers and all that good stuff.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a tree hugger. I eat meat. I don't have a problem with hunters or farmers so don't include me in that radical fringe PETA groupthink or anything.
Of course, cruelty to others is not something exclusive to high school students. I've run into plenty of adults who seem to derive pleasure from being cruel to other humans as well. Just simply ignoring the complete lack of moral development someone who calls himself an adult must have in order to find nothing better to do with his time than to try to create pain and havoc in a fellow human's life...that type of thinking is so foreign to me....so unrecognizable as anything that could possibly serve to better one's self...I don't know. I guess it just amazes me.
Why would someone get up in the morning and decide they need to cause an innocent person pain or discomfort? Our time on this earth is so very short and we have so little time to try to achieve higher levels of thinking and achieve some sort of inner peace so we can grow as individuals and grow spiritually. Is it really that hard to recognize that time spent on such petty endeavors that are soley practiced in order to make someone else's life less enjoyable does nothing, but set us back on our moral and emotional development?
I have hurt people in the past. There's no doubt about that. Never intentionally. Not that intent necessarily gives me a pass on the amount of blame I should take for my actions, but unless outrightly attacked by someone else, I honestly cannot remember the last time I tried to inflict any kind of pain on another individual. I don't see the point in doing it. I don't see what I gain from doing it, so I don't do it. I try very hard not to engage in thought processes and actions that do nothing to advance me as an individual, a father, a brother, a son...etc.
I'm nowhere near perfect, but it does occur to me that if more people on this earth spent more time in self-reflection and less time trying to lash out at others for real or perceived wrongs...or, in some cases, because the other has what he wants or, in other cases, for no reason whatsoever...well, this would just be a much better damn place to live wouldn't it?
I just don't know why it is so hard for people to "get" that.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Consoling or Rolling
Firstly, I would like to thank a random comment from a dear old friend for the title of this entry. In an email last night she told me, "You won't know if you should be consoling me, or rolling on the ground in laughter." Hence the title. I won't name her here, but I want to give her credit so I will mention it in a code so impenetrable, that not even the CIA's best could figure it out. ankthay ouyay, ereShay.
Well the last couple months like the couple before have been eventful. I was reintroduced to the world of dating. Wow, was that soooo very not cool.
At first it was a welcome distraction from what I saw as the sewage of my life. There was not a moment that I could stop feeling bad things and experiencing bad thoughts except when I was out and "aboot" as our Canadian neighbors like to say. You do know that Canada is going to take over the world some day right?
So over the course of the last six months of my life I have doubled the total amount of time I spent in bars over the last decade in an attempt to be social. Yes, I know. You are thinking, "That can't be good for you." Eh, it was either meeting friends and dates in bars or sitting at home trying to dream up new mental scenarios about what my wife and her boyfriend have been doing for the past year or so while I was at home taking care of the kid. I'll tell you what, if we can't waterboard terrorists for information we should seriously consider telling them their wives have been having sex with one of the most disgusting people on the planet...Bill O'Reilly for instance, and then let them go. Just tell them if they want to know the name and address of the offending outside partner, they'll have to come back and tell us where the nukes are or where Osama is located or whatever we want. I think it would work.
Anyhow, I decided to see what a slightly overweight, middle aged, lower middle class, but witty guy like myself would be worth on the open market. The good news is it was more than I thought. The bad part is I wasn't as ready for the market as I thought I was.
After sifting through a couple of the crazies, I did find two fantastic women. When I discovered myself getting cold feet as the relationship grew with the first one I unhesitatingly cut things off in as honest and forthright a manner as I possibly could. I told her I moved to Jamaica. In walks, this second amazing woman. Just as equally beautiful, smart, and competent as the first. Again, I had to cut it off. I did give her my Jamaican address though.
So without going into details, when the first relationship ended I thought, "Man, she's great, but I'm not feeling as intensely about it as she is." So I figured the spark wasn't there and I would just move on before things got serious. After much the same thing happened with the second one, I realized...all together now...It wasn't them. It was me.
I want to slice my veins open with a rusty carrot peeler just for saying that, but it was true. I've known no person who was more of a one woman at a time guy than me. None. I thought I was ready to dance and romance in the rubble of my marriage, but I wasn't and I ended up hurting some perfectly nice, innocent people who simply didn't need my shit.
Now I am in that waiting zone. Don't know if I should move forward. Don't know if I should step back. Don't know if I should start shopping for huts in Jamaica. Just gotta let time slide by and hopefully the answers will come to me. I just hope the answers get to me before the circus midgets do. Freakin' circus midgets...mumble, rumble, rassen, frassen.
P.S. Antidepressants: A counselor friend of mine suggested I get on a mild antidepressant for the short term to get me through the next year or so of agony. She didn't seem to think that the gallon of vodka a week was working for me all that well. I tried xanax for the anxiety attacks I was getting. That worked, but the problem was I liked it too well. I had to get off that stuff before I started sprinkling it on my toast in the morning.
The lexapro had no discernible affects. I was still having far too many dark thoughts. Try to imagine Rosie O'Donnell and Al Franken in the lead roles of the most disgusting porn film you have ever seen and you'll know just how disturbing the images in my head were at that time.
On came the Welbutrin. That seemed good at first. I was getting through my days better without the urge to lick a nine volt battery just to get my mind off things. However, after a while, the mood swings just about ended me. I would either be so deliriously happy, I would break into tears or I would be so inconsolably sad that I would break into tears. Nice. Now I am clean and dealing with shit as it comes the good old fashioned way, with a gallon of vodka a week.
Hey, it was good enough for my forefathers.
Well the last couple months like the couple before have been eventful. I was reintroduced to the world of dating. Wow, was that soooo very not cool.
At first it was a welcome distraction from what I saw as the sewage of my life. There was not a moment that I could stop feeling bad things and experiencing bad thoughts except when I was out and "aboot" as our Canadian neighbors like to say. You do know that Canada is going to take over the world some day right?
So over the course of the last six months of my life I have doubled the total amount of time I spent in bars over the last decade in an attempt to be social. Yes, I know. You are thinking, "That can't be good for you." Eh, it was either meeting friends and dates in bars or sitting at home trying to dream up new mental scenarios about what my wife and her boyfriend have been doing for the past year or so while I was at home taking care of the kid. I'll tell you what, if we can't waterboard terrorists for information we should seriously consider telling them their wives have been having sex with one of the most disgusting people on the planet...Bill O'Reilly for instance, and then let them go. Just tell them if they want to know the name and address of the offending outside partner, they'll have to come back and tell us where the nukes are or where Osama is located or whatever we want. I think it would work.
Anyhow, I decided to see what a slightly overweight, middle aged, lower middle class, but witty guy like myself would be worth on the open market. The good news is it was more than I thought. The bad part is I wasn't as ready for the market as I thought I was.
After sifting through a couple of the crazies, I did find two fantastic women. When I discovered myself getting cold feet as the relationship grew with the first one I unhesitatingly cut things off in as honest and forthright a manner as I possibly could. I told her I moved to Jamaica. In walks, this second amazing woman. Just as equally beautiful, smart, and competent as the first. Again, I had to cut it off. I did give her my Jamaican address though.
So without going into details, when the first relationship ended I thought, "Man, she's great, but I'm not feeling as intensely about it as she is." So I figured the spark wasn't there and I would just move on before things got serious. After much the same thing happened with the second one, I realized...all together now...It wasn't them. It was me.
I want to slice my veins open with a rusty carrot peeler just for saying that, but it was true. I've known no person who was more of a one woman at a time guy than me. None. I thought I was ready to dance and romance in the rubble of my marriage, but I wasn't and I ended up hurting some perfectly nice, innocent people who simply didn't need my shit.
Now I am in that waiting zone. Don't know if I should move forward. Don't know if I should step back. Don't know if I should start shopping for huts in Jamaica. Just gotta let time slide by and hopefully the answers will come to me. I just hope the answers get to me before the circus midgets do. Freakin' circus midgets...mumble, rumble, rassen, frassen.
P.S. Antidepressants: A counselor friend of mine suggested I get on a mild antidepressant for the short term to get me through the next year or so of agony. She didn't seem to think that the gallon of vodka a week was working for me all that well. I tried xanax for the anxiety attacks I was getting. That worked, but the problem was I liked it too well. I had to get off that stuff before I started sprinkling it on my toast in the morning.
The lexapro had no discernible affects. I was still having far too many dark thoughts. Try to imagine Rosie O'Donnell and Al Franken in the lead roles of the most disgusting porn film you have ever seen and you'll know just how disturbing the images in my head were at that time.
On came the Welbutrin. That seemed good at first. I was getting through my days better without the urge to lick a nine volt battery just to get my mind off things. However, after a while, the mood swings just about ended me. I would either be so deliriously happy, I would break into tears or I would be so inconsolably sad that I would break into tears. Nice. Now I am clean and dealing with shit as it comes the good old fashioned way, with a gallon of vodka a week.
Hey, it was good enough for my forefathers.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Positive, Positive, Positive
Alright, it seems to have come to my attention that some folks believe I need to start thinking more positively. Fuck them, but in the spirit of putting some things down in the blog:
Went and had a good time on Halloween with my soon to be ex-wife and my kid. Days later it was made even more enjoyable by the chatter of the idiotic masses that thought that meant the ex and I were mending fences. I guess it is too much to ask that we can be civil in the presence of each other for the sake of giving our kid a happy holiday.
I cut my hand to the bone in a stupid kitchen accident. Is there such a thing as a smart kitchen accident? What's positive about that? If the knife had missed the bone, I'm sure it would have gone straight through my hand and out the other side which would have required more than the super glue and athletic tape I did use to patch the hole. Always use the right knife for the job. That's the other positive thing. I didn't hurt myself too badly and I reminded myself of a simple lesson I should have learned when I first moved out of my parent's house.
I'm breathing.
I haven't been hit by a bus...yet.
One of the students I have respected the most over my 12 year teaching career cited me as one of her inspirations to become a teacher. That simple fact will keep me teaching at least until the end of this year after which I may still switch to a less stressful job in which the state know-nothings screw with me less like maybe a state trooper or something. I've also thought about manwhoring, but I figure I'm already past a good portion of my shelf life on that one. That Deadliest Catch show on the Discovery channel has also captured my interest. Another possibility there.
I was recently pulled over by a city cop and NOT ticketed.
I've instituted martial law in my freshman English class and guess what? Only one person did not have their book with them when we did work today. That my friends, is progress.
Instead of going to college I could have chosen to be a pimento stuffer in an olive factory. Narrow miss there.
I had an artist friend at least get a few issue stint drawing for Marvel. From what I've seen, his stuff looks great. He's worked hard for this opportunity. I hope this deals him into even brighter and bigger things in the world of comic art. Personally, I'm still hoping that he will illustrate my graphic porn novel when I finally sit down to write it. It may not be any good, but all the words will be spelled correctly and it may be the only time you see the words "penultimate", "stinkeye," and "yogurt gun" in the same sentence.
Okay time to end this nonsensical blog entry and get my positive ass to bed.
Went and had a good time on Halloween with my soon to be ex-wife and my kid. Days later it was made even more enjoyable by the chatter of the idiotic masses that thought that meant the ex and I were mending fences. I guess it is too much to ask that we can be civil in the presence of each other for the sake of giving our kid a happy holiday.
I cut my hand to the bone in a stupid kitchen accident. Is there such a thing as a smart kitchen accident? What's positive about that? If the knife had missed the bone, I'm sure it would have gone straight through my hand and out the other side which would have required more than the super glue and athletic tape I did use to patch the hole. Always use the right knife for the job. That's the other positive thing. I didn't hurt myself too badly and I reminded myself of a simple lesson I should have learned when I first moved out of my parent's house.
I'm breathing.
I haven't been hit by a bus...yet.
One of the students I have respected the most over my 12 year teaching career cited me as one of her inspirations to become a teacher. That simple fact will keep me teaching at least until the end of this year after which I may still switch to a less stressful job in which the state know-nothings screw with me less like maybe a state trooper or something. I've also thought about manwhoring, but I figure I'm already past a good portion of my shelf life on that one. That Deadliest Catch show on the Discovery channel has also captured my interest. Another possibility there.
I was recently pulled over by a city cop and NOT ticketed.
I've instituted martial law in my freshman English class and guess what? Only one person did not have their book with them when we did work today. That my friends, is progress.
Instead of going to college I could have chosen to be a pimento stuffer in an olive factory. Narrow miss there.
I had an artist friend at least get a few issue stint drawing for Marvel. From what I've seen, his stuff looks great. He's worked hard for this opportunity. I hope this deals him into even brighter and bigger things in the world of comic art. Personally, I'm still hoping that he will illustrate my graphic porn novel when I finally sit down to write it. It may not be any good, but all the words will be spelled correctly and it may be the only time you see the words "penultimate", "stinkeye," and "yogurt gun" in the same sentence.
Okay time to end this nonsensical blog entry and get my positive ass to bed.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Riding high on the downlow
Well today is the first day of my new rules for this class of freshmen. There are a lot of good kids in the 9th grade class, but the maturity level is something you would find in a your average 3rd grade room. My old method of pushing the responsibility on to the students to get them to realize that they had to grow up, just wasn't working for this batch which is unfortunate because that is really the easiest way for them to go.
I've had to institute some draconian rules regarding passes and tardies that I haven't ever had to do before. If you knew how much I hate making rules for the sake of having rules then you would know that this is not a decision I made lightly.
The one thing that keeps letting me know I'm on the right path is there are a few students in the room that seem to actually be glad that I'm not putting up with some of the nonsense that was so frequently associated with this class in the past. Those students are really stepping up and doing far better and taking far more pride in their work than I had seen from them at the beginning of the year.
We'll see if that continues or not. I know that a lot of what I wrote is very vague, but I'm not all that comfortable speaking of my students in a public forum. Suffice it to say that I do what I do for the good of the student and not because I like to lord some sort of fictional authority over them.
I've had to institute some draconian rules regarding passes and tardies that I haven't ever had to do before. If you knew how much I hate making rules for the sake of having rules then you would know that this is not a decision I made lightly.
The one thing that keeps letting me know I'm on the right path is there are a few students in the room that seem to actually be glad that I'm not putting up with some of the nonsense that was so frequently associated with this class in the past. Those students are really stepping up and doing far better and taking far more pride in their work than I had seen from them at the beginning of the year.
We'll see if that continues or not. I know that a lot of what I wrote is very vague, but I'm not all that comfortable speaking of my students in a public forum. Suffice it to say that I do what I do for the good of the student and not because I like to lord some sort of fictional authority over them.
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