May 26th- Update needed

I've got some serious making up to do with you readers. I have no good reason for not posting. In fact, the reasons I have are pitiful, and really, I'm embarrassed to have not done anything in the last near 4 weeks to post.

A lot of this stems from my mission to not watch TV. As a result, I've been working and reading more, so my mid-day posts are not even options, since I am normally at work (I decided to take today off as a result of a post- May 25th hangover) during the day lately...which leads to my first tirade of this post:

::ahem:: Two things I hate about subbing:
1) Kids who say "Whoa! We got a sub today? Yesssssss!". These kids are more often than not problematic students. While I appreciate their dedication to pointing themselves out as students I need to keep an eye on, their demonstrative behavior IN MY FUCKING FACE is unnecessary. Listen, you've JUST established yourself as a dickhead in this classroom...now, do you REALLY want to compound that with acting up? Why don't kids ever think about this? And, more importantly, why do students in 12th grade still act this way? I think by the time I turned 17 I was more excited by oh I don't know....women? At age 18, your primary goal shouldn't be to piss off a substitute teacher. Do you know what that says to me? Well, use your imagination. Jackass.

2) Students who use text in class. Look, you know the rules. I know the rules. I know you know I know the rules. So why even bother trying to send text messages in-class? Let's go over a few things to drive my point home....first, I am a sub. My primary function is to prevent stabbings, shouting, and drawing penises on walls. Second, your primary teacher is not likely to leave legitimate plans for me to actually teach you. It is because of this that I am constantly looking around the room to see if anyone's behaving in a way that is noteworthy, since again, students have little respect or regard for subs. Third, when the room is dark because I was left in charge of pressing the PLAY button on the DVD player and your face is the only one lit up by a little screen, you're busted. Fourth, when your head is down but you're not sleeping or not writing and you're just looking down for no particular reason, I know what's going on. You don't even have a fucking pen on your desk. This is logic, and this is probably why you failed it.... Then of course you get the kids who put their bags on their desk to block the phone from my view. Dickhead, now it's BLATANTLY obvious that your worksheet or whatever-the-hell is not on your desk and that you are DEFINITELY not doing what you're supposed to be doing. SINCE MY TEACHING IS MINIMAL, I AM GOING TO BE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING THESE THINGS! YOU ARE BOUND TO GET INTO TROUBLE! IS 45 MINUTES OF NOT USING YOUR FUCKING PHONE TO TEXT "IDK" TO SOMEONE ELSE TOO LONG? OR are you content to get the phone taken away and get written up? I weep for the future.


On a sidenote, I got the stink eye from someone the other day because I nearly walked into them while they were texting. Now, perhaps I could be faulted for not taking advantage of my situation (being the person not texting) and side-stepped the situation. My rebuttal to that is that YOU ARE IN PUBLIC! BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS! It's like falling into a hole because you were looking around at the scenery. The hole was there independently of your paying attention. If it's that important, then fucking CALL the person! I cannot stress this enough, the next generation of Americans is fucked.

Think about it: we're slowly moving towards a society in which face-to-face interaction takes up less of our time. I'm guilty of texting and of posting tirades and opinions online (so unless you've seen me recently, these tirades and whatnot are something you will never hear me talk about live), and of course I enjoy a quick text or e-mail or IM...it's just unfortunate that these methods of communication are overwhelmingly becoming more and more prevalent in our society. In Technology in the classroom, a grad course I took, our professor encouraged us to figure out a way to make Twitter work in the classroom. This took place before Twitter became "the bee's knees", and so I forced myself to come up with a good project idea. I don't agree with what I wrote, though it got rave reviews and probably would be effective in a classroom. HOWEVER, I don't see what the problem is with talking to one another and learning to communicate effectively in person without "lol"s and "wtf"s and "ttyl"s. Absurd.



ANYWAY... another reason I haven't been updating is travel. I've spent my weekends in May out of town. As a result, my presence in front of a computer has been limited to email checking and fantasy baseball updating. This leads me to tirade #2 on the day...

So I spent the other weekend celebrating the law school graduation of a good friend of mine, Chuckles Lawdog McNasty, (esq. to be filled in here shortly). I must say few things make me genuinely happy as when I meet friends of friends of mine who turn out to be good people. I experienced this in LA, Chicago, and the booming metropolis of Concord. The gentlemen of Action Jackson are always accomodating and up for fun and hijinks whenever they have out-of-town company. It deserves its own mention, and so here it is.

I mean, think about it: haven't you ever met the friend of a friend and they're kind of a jerk or just an ass in general? I can think of a few such instances, and while some of them can be brushed off as "oh, so and so just comes to parties" or "oh, she's only friends with _______ . She and I aren't that close", others have no excuse. Chuckles does not have such a problem at law school, or at least didn't while he was there.



I've managed to read four more books this month, and am currently still strugging to finish one that I started last month and am anticipating busting through that one so I can get to "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, author of "Blink", as well as "Why We Suck" by Denis Leary. At least they are engaging.

Alright, let's get a few things squared away now that I'm running on all cylinders:

1) ALL cylinders is not true. I haven't run on all cylinders since 2007. This is probably the most passionate I'm going to be for right now.
2) I detest facebook applications. It's petty, yeah. I will say, though, that the applications for top movies and whatnot is ridiculous since THEY GIVE YOU FUCKING SPACE TO ENTER INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT YOUR FAVORITE THINGS ARE! Do we REALLY need another forum for that? I vote no.
3) Twitter bothers me. If you want a brief synopsis of random observations, call someone. If you are going to use such a site for something practical, good for you. I can't understand why people will want to get an instant update whenever Ashton Kutcher thinks up something contrived and unnecessarily-influential to put online. I haven't read any posts of his, but I would be willing to wager that a small amount of it is substantially thought-provoking.
4) We are a long way away from experiencing a substantial enough change in the economy.

Alright, time for lunch. Another post is on the menu for this afternoon.