education is for the weak

During my thirteen years in the school system, I've come across a lot of reasons to be thankful for school and a lot of reasons to beat it to death with a blunt stick. But what's always pissed me off is how disrespectful some students are to teachers.

Let me make it clear that I KNOW there are some adults who are, frankly speaking, extremely patronizing, extremely condescending, or downright rude to teenagers, for no apparent reason other than that they ARE teenagers. (Okay, we realize that brattiness is one of the attributed characteristics of teenagers, but that doesn't mean all of us are soulless inconsiderate jerkfaces.)

Given that we clearly resent the negative stereotypes, however, it really ought to go both ways. That is, not all adults are the ones as previously described. I'd say that most of my teachers aren't. (I haven't liked all of my teachers, but there's only ever been ONE - out of roughly 35 - that I legitimately wanted fired, and still do, even though it's been four years since I last saw him. And that wasn't because he was condescending towards eleven year olds, it was because he was an actual creepo.) THEREFORE, they do deserve some level of respect, even if it's just for being a teacher in the first place. (Seriously, put yourself in their shoes - I can't even imagine how much patience you must have to have to be a teacher, even a bad one. TOO MANY kids ALL DAY LONG.)

I just hate when you have stupid kids on power trips talking about how much abuse they get from teachers. And by abuse, they mean a teacher tells them off when they're late to class or tells them to stop smoking. OH NO, YOUR LIFE IS SO DIFFICULT.

Okay, I get it, you hate school. But you have to go, so while you're there, can you please try to minimize the amount of complaining you do? Because 85% of it could be resolved if you would just shut the fuck up and realize that your teacher isn't being unfair; they're simply trying to teach. And you won't let them because you think that every little thing you do, every time you wear a hat when you're not supposed to or every time you bring your skateboard to school, is somehow going to change the balance and give you all the power. Or that you're making some sort of statement against authority. In reality, all you're doing is looking like an obnoxious, immature prick, which isn't fun for the rest of us either because it means that we have to sit there and wait for the teacher to finish yelling at you. WASTE OF TIME.

Busy April

It's an on-going joke for me whenever I blog to look down at this 'Labels for this post' bit where the examples of labels for this post is 'scooters, vacation, fall'. When I first saw it, I was thinking "Who writes about scooters?' And then I thought 'Well, I did.'

I seem to remember a blog post where I posted a picture of me on my scooter which was loaded down with sleepover stuff but it could have been one of those situations where I think so much about writing a blog post I convince myself that I've written it. I can't find that post but when you're looking through a list of 274 posts it get's onerous. Am I imagining this post or does anyone remember it? Moving on...

Internal debate of the moment: Should I participate in Script Frenzy* this April?

I have always been an advocate of the 'If you want to do something, you can make time. There's always time to do what you're passionate about' school of thought. Whenever I was talking to people about NaNoWriMo and they'd say stuff like, "Oh, I wish I had enough time to do stuff like that," I would nod and sympathize while secretly thinking, "That's your excuse? You don't have time? Do you think I have time to write 1,167 words a day for a month? No, I don't. But I made time because this is what I want to do so you can stop thinking I'm a layabout home schooler with oodles of time and nothing to do but read fiction and write novels. You're a lame-o wuss. Suck it." So it seems kind of weird for me to be thinking about not doing Screnzy for lack of time. But when I think about it, April is a very busy month. You've got...

1. BEDA, of course. I'm assuming this is still going on but I've heard no word from mj. With my three blogs this shouldn't be that difficult but at the same time, yeah, it's going to be difficult.
2. There are a lot of birthdays in April. Off the top of my head I can think of six close acquaintances. Apparently, July is the time for procreation.
3. School. April is the time when I'll be worried about finishing in time for summer and thus when I'll be cracking the whip on myself.
4. Reading. Will Grayson, Will Grayson comes out and I'll also have another book for my classic challenge. Remind me to pick something light...

This is quite a list. The lure of writing a movie might add one more item to this list.

It's kind of weird for me to want to write a script with all I know about it. I've been to two workshops on the craft and it seems like a pretty lousy part of the film industry from what I've heard. The pay is shit and directors will take your baby and screw with it until your lovely dark comedy turns into Employee of the Month starring Jessica Simpson for Christ's sake.**

And yet, as I watched the Academy Awards on Thursday (so glad Sandra Bullock won Best Actress. I love her.) I couldn't help drafting my own winning speech. It's so tiresome to hear all the thanks although I'm sure it's nice when you're being thanked. I'd probably say something like, "Thanks to everyone who needs to be thanked. You know who you are and if you're confused just consider yourself thanked. It's easier that way." Then I'd say something funny about how I'd been drafting this speech since I was eight.

Then we talked about how I would win this Oscar and I'm over the whole actress thing so, unless I turn into an AV geek, I'm stuck with writing. Or directing. Or cinematography. But I suck at holding a camera and I can write so I think that's my best bet. What accreditation does it take to be a director? If Catherine Hardwicke can do it... just kidding Catherine. Twilight was a good attempt. You have something. Not sure what it is or if I want it but you have it.

I'm thinking I'll write the script anyway. You're allowed to collaborate so I'll twist my sister's arm until she folds to my will. Unless... do either of you want to write a script with me? Google Docs works wonders and it doesn't have to be a movie. It could be a play or a tv show. Scratch that last, I don't want to write a tv show. Think about it.

*Script Frenzy or Screnzy is a internet event put on by the same people who do NaNoWriMo where people are encouraged to write a 100 page script in one month.

**Yes, I met the writer of Employee of the Month. He was a bit upset with the end product.

Whajamacalls

Since I haven't asked before, here's a little survey on your regional slang:

What do you call...?

-- Shoes commonly used in athletic pursuits (My answer: Gym shoes. People who say "tennis shoes" really annoy me. They're used for more than tennis! Given, gym shoes are used outside of gyms, but whatever.)

-- Carbonated, sweet beverages (Soda. "Pop" is the standard here, but I only call it by its full name, "Sodapop" if I'm being old-timey/ironic or referring to The Outsiders.)

-- A large, frankly delicious sandwich, as in Subway ("Submarines", technically, but I say sub. This being the prefix of "SUBway", I say it's right.)

-- The underground room of a house (I didn't know a basement could be called other things, but Wikipedia says otherwise.)

-- Sweet, dessertish round things (Cookies, but "biscuits" are so posh-sounding and British. I enjoy this term and am trying to use it more.)

-- Squares of cement that you walk on outside (It's weird to describe sidewalks without using the word sidewalk. It's a sidewalk.)

Question! (It's been a while since I've asked one, so I thought I should, in keeping with the questiony theme of this post. Note: I almost never say "been" as "bean", but as "bin". Again, "bean" sounds British.)

Have you ever called an American/a northerner a "yankee"?

ARGH ARGH RARGH

I'm scrunched up on the edge of my couch, pressing the keys one by one so as not to wake my mother, who is asleep in the chair opposite mine. We're waiting for my dad to reurn from the airport with my sister, whose flight got delayed by three hours.

Food. Want it. Too loud.

In the quiet, everything seems like a freaking cannon blast.

I could be reading Things Fall Apart for English, but that would require moving from the couch, which is entirely too much effort. It would also require brainpower and I have none. Sleep. Want that, too.

Perhaps because I've got so little of it this week, sleep frequently consumes my mind. Not in the literal sense, like I'm always asleep, but like I'm always thinking about it. That, and food. I swear, 95% of my bad moods are caused by a lack of either of those (usually food). I don't know what that says about me; maybe that I'm animalistic in my goals in life: eat, sleep, don't die. I have other ones too, of course, but those are more or less the driving factors in my motivation for doing stuff. Primarily the first two.

Ah, brain is not working!

Okay, you know how when you're really tired, everything seems to take too much effort? Sometimes I just stand in the bathroom staring at my reflection for ten minutes before I realize that I should probably brush my teeth et all so that I can sleep.

I'm going to go venture into the kitchen in the hopes of finding something yummish. "TTYL," as they say on the interwebs.

(PS, sorry for technically posting this on a Saturday morning - 12:04 a.m. - although the time on this blog is so out of whack with what my time is, in both minutes and hours, that it'll probably show up as 8:00 pm. Iz good.)

Story Time!

I have not looked at Twitter updates since Sunday afternoon and the reason for that is I missed the Academy Awards on Sunday night. The reason for that is I was at my writing course. I've always watched the Academy Awards with my family. We usually get dressed up and eat hors d'oeuvres. This time I missed so I haven't been on Twitter because I didn't want to spoil it for myself. I'm going to my dad's to watch it tonight and then I'll be looking at four days worth of Twitter, something I'm not looking forward to.

So my writing course. This month was storytelling which is awesome. I love telling stories. Writing them down is kind of weird but telling them is awesome. Now I will tell you the story of getting there.

I am rather transit savvy. If I ever take the bus with friends and they have trouble figuring out which side of the ticket to stick in, I laugh knowingly to myself. Number one rule of transit taking is to show up at the stop EARLY. Okay, so maybe this isn't number one. Number one is make sure you know what bus to take. Number two is always have exact change. That would make being early number three. You get the point. It's still important.

Knowing this we probably should have left five minutes earlier. We didn't. What we did do was get a ride with my sister's friend's mom who was coincidentally dropping off my sister's friend. Having been driven, we got there ten minutes early which, although better than being on time and missing the bus, is a bit anticlimactic. The other irritating thing that we realized was that I'd forgotten my homework and Rachel had forgotten her iPod. And so we stood there, not willing to sit down on the wet bench, each with one earphone of my iPod in. Fun times!

Rachel and I have been known to dance on a crowded Sky Train before. This time we refrained. We got on the bus and then stared out the window until we got there. I find that whenever I'm on a bus, no matter what reading material is in my bag, I always want to stare out the window.

I ran up the stairs of the train station, as I always do, and we sat down at the back of the train so we could watch the tracks appearing behind us. It's a simple pleasure. When the Sky Train goes underground, an irony I will never get over, it always reminds me of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Harry is... in the Chamber of Secrets. The walls are curved in a circle and the lighting contributes greatly to envisioning a massive basilisk roaming the tunnels. It would probably be killed by the trains that go every four minutes but one can imagine.

We resurfaced with forty five minutes to spare and, not wanting to be early, we ventured into a mall. That was a mistake.

Malls are scary places filled with fingerless mannequins and rabid consumers. We came up through a department store that was like Sears only scarier and posh, then we got the end of it, when we promptly turned around and went back where we came from. Then we sat in Starbucks until we saw the bus go buy in front of us, EARLY. We ran out, got on and then got off at our destination. Very simple.

Cue writing class. I heard two stories, one very profound one by a fellow FreeWriter and another by the session facilitator about a strange man in her house. I read mine to my critiquing partner and it was weird because if I write a story on paper, it's supposed to be read. If I tell a story orally, it's meant to be told. Therefore, reading my story off a piece of paper was weird.

Whatever, then it was over. Class ended late, as per the norm, and so we frantically left building, not knowing where the stop was. Imagine two frantic girls at a orangely lit intersection. We crossed to each corner of the intersection before going back the way we'd come and found the stop in the nick of time.

The ride home felt extraordinarily long and I mostly wrote and stared out the window, this time at blackness.

***

In other news the Eclipse trailer was released today. I'm not sure what to think of it. Let me know what you think... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2HIda5wSVU

Twitter, 141+

You may know this if you follow me on Twitter*, or you may not even if you do. But, on Saturday, I held up to the "Do one thing each day that scares you"** challenge type thing. At least, I take it to be a challenge. It's more like a command, the way it's worded. Since it wouldn't get done if most people had the choice. As a generalization, people stick to the known, the mundane, and the safe. (Boooo... but I'm certainly not going to go trapeezing anytime soon, so who am I to judge? Yay nonfrightening normal daily activities!) A personal feat that is mildly frightening and/or new to me. Variety is the spice of life, so on and so forth...

I did this, not by bullfighting or flambéing things or jumping on top of a parachute being held up by 22 other people***, but by eating a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.

This was accomplished out of necessity and boredom, always a great combination. Steps:

1. Become hungry.

2. Search for edible foodstuffs that require minimal preparation.

3. Notice peanut butter, with a sad lack of jelly and other conventional ingredients.****

4. Google ideas for other things to put on a Peanut butter sandwich.

5. Results: Tomatoes, Radishes, Sweet Pickles, Raisins, Mayonnaise.

6. Wait until hunger outweighs general feelings of unease.

7. Assemble.

8. Eat.

Conclusion: Really not that bad. I wouldn't eat it again by choice, but it's okay.

(Other random things not suitable for placement in the body of text within this post, as it would be fine and my point would still be clear if I didn't include these bits, but still points worth noting that I thought of while typing the main portion of this, but that would be too long as parenthetical statements, so I indicate them with stars and put them here correspondingly:

AKA FOOTNOTES.)

*A pretty good source of subject matter, seeing as Twitter is kind of a mini-blog, a stack of Post-Its to be reassembled into cohesive thoughts later.

**Eleanor Roosevelt

***The opportunity hasn't presented itself for the former, but I DID decline when people in my Spanish class were looking for the smallest person to lay on one of those parachutes commonly used in elementary-school gym class where everyone would put stuff on top of it and then shake the parachute so as to keep all the objects off of the ground or something. (this was insanely fun, it's nice to have an excuse to do this nowadays.) except this was considerably smaller, and instead of balls or beanbags or those badminton things or paper elephants (en español hoy), they would be tossing MOI. It's not that I don't trust people, I just don't... trust people... with my physical safety much. I can't do that trust exercise thing where you fall backwards into another person's arm, if that's any indication of my issues.

****I have indeed tried it with Nutella, and it's quite magically, mouthgasmically delicious, but it's gone. This needs to be fixed. Also, I really dislike having JUST peanut butter on a sandwich. On both pieces of bread it's kind of too thick-ish. I'm weird, I know.