Who writes these things? Morons?!?!

I swear that morons write textbooks. For example ...

Math 10 ... one question is about planets. It asks the student to find the circumferance of Uranus. The kids laughed about that for 10 minutes. Come on textbook companies, use another planet ... there are only 7 others to choose from ... neptune is a nice planet!

The literacy book. I've lectured my kids over again that the use of "gay" as an insult is unacceptable in the classroom. I've even threatened to send kids to the office if I heard it again in class. Well, one kid muttered something about gay and I sighed really loudly and gave him, "I'm going to lecture you now look"*

He looked at me and said, "It's in the book honest!"

And loll and behold, the book is talking about how you want to be a lawer at the offices of Brown & Gaylord... who the hell thought of this stuff?!? Why would they publish this in a textbook for teenagers ... to make the teacher's life more difficult?!? This is a very current textbook, they should know better. Yeah, I know Gaylord is a name, but, come on ... why couldn't they just put Smith or Wong or something just as common?

* I hate lecturing students. I've only done it once and I felt a real asshole, but sometimes, it's what I gotta do.

Dude

I'm on a dude crusade... I told one of my co-workers this and she got the wrong idea so let me explain.

I say "dude" way too much! As in,

"Dude! You so can't do that!"

Anyway, we have a token economy at school where kids can earn prizes with tokens they earn from school staff. This month's focus is "support". So I'm asking the students to support me in not saying dude. I told each of my classes, and any other student around, that if they heard me say dude, they could call me on it and I'd give them a token. I commented that this deal was also valid outside school.

Today is day one, and so far I've given away more than half a dozen tokens. My big slip up was when I was chasing a student back into class, and I said, "Dude! As If!" I was the first one to catch me, but a couple of students who knew about the deal ran up to me to collect their token (some from way down the hall too, but it was quiet in the hall so they heard me).

A couple of people commented on my use of dude when I mentioned my crusade. Two students said that I got them saying dude and now when they say it, they think of me. One teacher told me that she used dude in one of her assignments to be funny (like me) and the students commented that she's starting to sound like me. That's how often I use dude. People associate the word with me.

My reasons for doing this came at the anti-valentine's day party. I said it a couple of times and the VP mentioned that I say it a lot. He joked that he's scared I'll call one of the school members, or worse yet, an tribe elder "dude". I don't think I would, but, hey, you never know.

So now I'm off dude. Of course, it's always valid when refering to Lebowski :)

Bud Earphones

Like I've mentioned, I recently purchased an iPod. I know, I know, I'm like one of the last people to get one of these things. I remember when they came out, every one was gaga over the headphones.


They have superior sound, blah blah blah. But I hate them. I hate bud earphones. They don't fit my ears. And I sure as heck know it's not my ears fault. I have lovely ears. In fact, I have perfect ears. They are the one body part that I've never had anyone criticize, including myself. In fact, people comment on how lovely they are. The are small and delicate. So I guess bud headphones are just too big for my small, delicate ears. They constant fall out. I've seen people jog with these things in and they don't fall out. On me, I'm just sitting there and out they pop.

So I ordered some decent earphones from Sears. Along with a NEW TV!!!!! I'm getting a nice 27 inch flat screen. The total cost of both items, along with shipping, fit nicely in my $500 credit card limit. Sweet! The only problem is that Sears doesn't do home delivery on TVs. So I have to go to the nearest store to pick it up. When I got the call for that, I almost cried ... until I learned the nearest store(which is a catalogue ordering place) happens to be on the same island as the watering hole. I'll just need someone strong (hopefully my crush!?!?) to go with me to carry the TV from the "store" to the sea bus and then someone to give me a ride from the dock to my house.

Top Ten Shuffle

As a tribute to Toccata (who got the idea from someone else), I thought I'd do a top ten shuffle.

1. If It Makes You Happy - Sheryl Crow
2. Just Missed the Train - Kelly Clarkson
3. Smack That - Akon feat. Eminem
4. Dot (Shut up) - Destiny's Child
5. The More I Talk - David Shumka
6. In the Water I am Beautiful - City and Colour
7. Gloomy - Matt Costa
8. Must get Out - Maroon 5
9. Santa Monica - Theory of a Deadman
10. Let's Get it On - Matthew Good band

I'm gonna comment on Smack That for a while. The first time I "heard" this song it was coming out of one of my grade 8's mouth. I don't quite know if he knows what he was saying:

Smack that all on the floor
Smack that give me some more
Smack that 'til you get sore
Smack that, oh ohhh ohhh oh

The next time I heard about this song was from one of my grade 10s when she was commenting that she hates in the video how he inhales in the jail cell when he's singing the song. Hmm, so many things wrong with that sentence. I finally heard the song. And it's catchy, dammit! So much so that I downloaded it from iTunes ... I actually paid 99¢ for it!

I looked up "Smack That in the urban dictionary. I was wondering if it had anything to do with "Hit me" like in that stupid Britney Spears song. Smack that refers to the noise made when doing it doggie style! Oh my!

I'm a bit torn about liking the song. Do I like the message it sends out? Well, I'm not comfortable talking about sexual positions in public. But a lot of songs are about sex, they just disguise it better. They talk about making love ... which I guess sounds better because it implies some sort of feelings involved. Which is a message that society accepts more.

But is there really that much difference between the acceptable love songs that talk about holding each other while they make passionate love all night long, or about a guy who likes to fuck his girl really hard from behind?

The Watering Hole

When the teachers go out to drink, we go to the next town over ... accessible by boat only. There is a nicer (relative to the restaurant here, no offense)restaurant over there with a bub area as well. There is a taxi we can get, it's $5 round trip. Community members do venture over to the next town for the finer ambiance to dine and drink too ... but the people who tend to frequent the bar in town, don't venture out to the "nicer" restaurant.

There was a beautiful rainbow yesterday that I managed to capture "on film". The pot of gold would happen to fall on the restaurant that we frequent in the next town (it's just behind the point seen in the picture). I thought that was neat.

Missed opportunity

My horoscope this month says that I will start dating a guy that will treat me right around mid-month. Cool, that'd be nice. It's around mid-month now. And I do have a little crush on a guy (who's my age too). Now all I need is an opportunity.

I'm sick. As in I have a cold. Ok, big deal.

So I decide to go to the store for some soup. So I brave it out there, no make-up. Looking like crap, in general.

I'm just about to pay for my groceries and I feel a sneeze coming on. I put my arm up to sneeze on (because my hands are full of groceries) and sneeze.



Well, this is the most disgusting sneeze I've ever had, I swear. I even repressed some of it too. Anyway, there is this huge pile of mucus on my sleeve. Yes, pile. Huge. Gross! It was so gross, I had to extract a tissue from my pants to wipe off my sleeve. I manage to do all this and then get my groceries on the conveyor belt.

I'm walking to put my basket back while the clerk is scanning in my groceries and I look up just in time to see my crush say hello to me. Damn! I've been waiting weeks to spot him in public and here I am sick and looking crappy! I say hi back a bit flustered hoping he didn't see my snot fireworks moments earlier.

I manage to get my groceries and start walking home. I spot my crush walking up ahead of me with his buddy. I'm walking behind them for a while hoping that they don't turn around to see me. Then I start wishing they would turn around so I could talk to him. So I cough pitifully hoping they turn around. The buddy turns around a few times to stare at me, but my crush doesn't (I don't know the buddy and I don't think he knows me either). I end up walking behind them the ENTIRE way home. They literally walk by my front door. I get into the house and realize ... THAT WAS MY OPPORTUNITY! I could have called out at the beginning of the walk home and walked home with them. I'm so silly. How old am I, 12? It would have been the neighbourly thing to do for me to actually walk with them. Crap! Oh well, live and learn.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Old Technology

I love tech toys. I have quite a few. One of my favorites being my GPS. My latest being an 80 Gig iPod.

But one thing I own that is super old is a TV from 1983.



I've dated guys younger than the TV!

The TV technically belongs to the-guy-I-lived-with-once-upon-a-time-ago's uncle. I kept it after we broke up and I've never had the need to get another one. True, I have to use the knob on the front to turn it on and off, and I need to get up and turn the same knob to adjust the volume. But I do have it hooked up to my VCR to change the channel via remote.

But the TV is starting to break down. Sometimes the picture scrunches up and I have to hit it on the top with a hammer.

I've been thinking about getting a new one but it will be such a hassle to get one up here. I guess one of the main reasons I've been thinking this lately happened when I had some friends over. One guy looked at my TV and said, "I think my picture in picture is bigger than your TV."

Chalk

I have both a chalk board and a white board in my classroom. I prefer the chalk board because I don't get high off chalk dust, unlike white board pen fumes.

But when you work with chalk, even when you have a chalk holder, you get chalk dust all over your hands.

I have a thing for cute underwear and socks. In fact I have one whole drawer in my dresser for socks and one whole drawer for underwear. Excessive, I know. I think I could last a month easily without washing any of these items and still have clean ones left.

Anyway, cute underwear is often synonymous with uncomfortable. I'm cool with that. But I learned a very valuable lesson about this.

Never, ever, ever pick out a wedgie at school when you are wearing dark pants and you work with chalk.

Chaos and peeing

Here is some (disturbing?) insight into me.

I love math. That is no surprise. I teach it, I have a degree in it.

This summer I was taking a math education course and we had to do a group project/teaching presentation on a topic. The professor gave us a list of possible topics and said we should pick one that we haven't studied before. Since I was one of the only people in the class with a math degree, I had studied a lot of the topics. One topic I hadn't studied was chaos theory. I've always had a thing for chaos theory, and here is why.


Have you seen Jurassic Park? It came out when I was 13 and it was one of the only movies my family owned. So I've seen it 15 million times. There is a small scene that introduced me to chaos theory. Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldbloom's character), a mathematician, is explaining/hitting on Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern's character) and explaining how chaos theory works via an example with a drop of water traveling down her hand . This scene stuck in my head for some reason.

I was thinking about it once when I was going pee. I notice that when I go pee, the pee never travels out of my body into the toilet the same way. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow, sometimes it dribbles down my butt, etc. I've experimented too, thinking about this chaos. I've tried positioning myself different ways too ... I've sat straight up, I've slouched, I've bent my torso over my legs, I've hovered above the seat, etc. Then it changes depending how diluted my urine is with water. It also changes depending on my hair style. I've spent way too much time thinking about urinating and chaos theory.

Anyway, I ended up convincing my group to do chaos theory where we showed the clip in Jurassic Park to the class as an intro to chaos theory. We then ended up playing with double pendulums to look at something that moves chaotically. We got a good mark on our project.

Yes, I did tell my group why I wanted to do chaos. They thought it was funny, and a bit strange .. .but they weren't so weirded out because they know I'm a bit bizarre.

If I ever do my PhD in math (which I think I'll never do), I'd like to explore the chaos of peeing. It would at least amuse the people evaluating my thesis.

What a rip off!

So I finally washed my way to my next fortune, with my fortune soap. Here's what I think of this fortune:


Why, may you ask? Here's what it said:
Your lucky numbers are 1 5 8 20 25 42
Use them wisely.

Crap! I could have really used some wisdom here. Well, in all fairness, my favorite number is 5. I can think of meaning with almost each of the remaining numbers. Some good, some bad ...

1 is what I am. I think out of the entire community, I'm the first listing in the phone book.

8 is the number I was with the guy I last slept with. Ouch! Before that I was 1 or 4.

20 was the age I was when I got my absolutely drunkest ever. I paid for that for days.

25 was the day I got home on Christmas Vaction. It was also the age I was when I got into education school.

42 ... hmm. No meaning yet for me. Maybe that number will bring me luck!

Identity

So today, I'm in the general store and the person in front of me is having her groceries scanned in. The person behind me is chatting with her, and sees that she's buying canned oysters. She jokes with the person in front of me that it must be a hot night today (mind you, the entire time one of my student's is standing right there. She the niece of the lady in front of me). The lady in front, jokes back that it's not even Friday either.

I know that oysters are considered an aphrodisiac ... but they are usually raw and on the half shell. Well, I was informed by the lady behind me that canned oysters are the village aphrodisiac. Then she said I should get some. I kind of giggled nervously and said I'd keep that in mind. She then asked me if I was the one dating R. Nope, not me. It's my co-worker. But man, gossip spreads here. I think everyone here knows that one of the new, young teachers in dating R. So all you have warned me that people will know (and talk), I heading you.

Anyway, the lady continued by saying that I should snap up a man here before June. I asked why, do they all go away then. She said yes. Strange conversation.

Another identity moment I had was in class. One student (the same one who hacked into Coldplay's site) was asking me about a new musician who has a very similar name to mine. This musician is English. He said, well, she could be you. She's white. I replied that she may be white and have a similar name as me, but her eyes and hair are dark. I continued by saying that I have light eyes. Here's a picture.


He then said to me, "You have light eyes!?!" And then looked into my eyes for like the first time. I replied that I have blue eyes.

He just looked at me and said, quite surprised, "You're a white lady!" He seemed shocked by this realization. Do my blue eyes totally define me as such? Did he never think of me as white until that moment? Hmmm, the mysteries.