Shower Thoughts

I find I do some of my best thinking in the shower.  Not sure why.  There's probably a scientific reason for it, somehow related to water.  Whatever the reason, my mind produces a plethora of platitudes and plankton-like thoughts (Sorry.  I had an urge to alliterate).  A few of the things I came up with, I will not write for your viewing pleasure.

I've had to revise my opinion of a Linkin Park song.  It's on the radio right now - Waiting for the End.  When I first heard it, I remember thinking that it was a little odd, but it strayed from the original sound.  I felt a little betrayed.  When I think of Linkin Park, I expect to hear rock music in my head; this latest effort is a bit more of a ballad.  I even discussed this a little with Claudia.  She was giving me a lift somewhere and the song came on the radio.  I remember her asking me what I thought of it and I told her basically what I wrote above this sentence.  Over the course of this last semester, though, the song started to grow on me.  Maybe it's because I was at the end of my college career, or the end of my student teaching.  Maybe it's just where I am in life right now.  I feel like I've come to the end of something.  But, like the song says, "this is not the end.  This is just the beginning."  Somewhere, somewhen, somehow, I've changed.  And so, the song reverberates with me now.  I find myself singing along (I need more practice.  Still don't have the lyrics committed to memory).

Shifting topics.  Watched The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus last night.  Definitely a weird movie.  I saw names on the front-Christopher Plummer, Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrel, Jude Law-and I thought that it would be worth watching.  I was right-it was good.  Also strange.  The storyline was straightforward in setting up the problem.  The solution left me puzzled, though.  The resolution was also bizarre.  I'm still trying to process and analyze all of the movie.  Maybe that's my problem.  In one of the special features, the director says that the movie was almost a whimsical move for him.  It shows.  It's a whimsical movie.

Shifting topics.  Had a revelation the other day.  Well, a revelation for me, maybe not for you.  I thought about the basic nature of Sin.  How would I define Sin in a sentence?  Here's what I came up with.  Sin (Satan's Way) is putting Me before You.  God's Way (don't have a single word definition) is putting You before Me.  I think that's all the explanation I'll put here.  Think about it.  It'll make sense.

Okay.  I'm freshly showered, I exercised a little while ago.  I'm starting to feel thirsty and hungry.  Let us eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow is another day.

Breasts, Pyramids, and Plagiarism

Yes, you read that correctly.  I wrote "breasts".  Your attitude is, quite possibly, about the same as my students' this afternoon.  As we were reading our book ("The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" - rather a good read), one of the boys read the word "breasts".  Yes, you know the connotation (He wasn't talking about chicken.).  And he couldn't stop laughing.  What?  Are we in high school?  ...Yes, we are.

Other laugh-worthy news today included a student in my 6th period asking this question:
"Did the Jews build the pyramids?"  As you can tell, the kid is a genius.

Also in 6th period, I discovered a way to help one of my students sit quietly in his desk.  Playdoh!  I'm not kidding.  I gave him a little container Playdoh and walked away.  He was fine for the rest of the period.  Teacher win!

In more sad/irritating news, I had a student in Composition leave the classroom.  He discovered that I'd given him an F on his last paper.  I did that for two distinct reasons.  First, he wrote me a paragraph.  No more than a dozen lines.  Second, he plagiarized.  Over half of what he had on paper was copied.  How could I tell?  The syntax.  He doesn't have punctuation, spelling, or grammar that correct.  And it wasn't hard to find the passage.  So he got mad.  Started cussing.  I told him to cool it.  He refused.  Then he threatened to leave.  I told him to go.  With an attitude like that, I didn't want him in class.  He'd have irritated me and been a distraction to the class.
I believe that's the fifth or sixth case of plagiarism in that class during this semester.  The last four have been within the past two weeks.  One student has plagiarized two entire essays.  Granted, he changed a few words in the second.  One other student plagiarized a paragraph (not the student mentioned above).  The rest of her essay was decent, so I'm not entirely sure why she plagiarized.  Might have had something to do with the fact that she was playing a game online while the rest of the class was watching the movie.  [shrug] Her choice.

Well, that's about it for now.  Perhaps I'll write about Christmas shopping.  Or the lack thereof.  Whatever.

The Truth about The Truth

*Disclaimer: This is going to be a serious in-depth blog post.  I will be blunt; I will be serious; I might go a little over-the-top; but I will try to keep it real.

"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" That's what Jack thundered at us.  That's what his character believed.  He was the villain.  And yet, somehow, we believed him.  We (North Americans, the SDA church, maybe the world in general) believed that we were not capable of handling the truth.  Before you say, "Hang on.  I can dig it," let me explain what I mean.  The truth is, those pants do make your butt look fat.  But your boyfriend might not tell you that because he knows that you're asking a rhetorical question and he shouldn't give you a literal answer.  The truth is, American forces are not occupying Iraq to pursue justice and democracy.  Those forces are there so that the American government can get access to oil reserves.  If they had gone for justice and democracy, American forces would have been gone after a couple of years.  They're still there.  ALMOST A DECADE AFTER 9/11.  The truth is, the church does not adequately help sinners.  We'd prefer that you look good on the outside, keep your sins in the closet, and never tell us that you're struggling.  That way, we can gossip about other people's sins, remove persons from positions of authority because they're human, too, and we won't have to make an effort to be genuine.  We can pretend that we're on the road to righteousness and there are no roadbumps.
...Am I going too fast for you?  The truth is, we don't keep it real.  The reality is, those pants make you look like a whale, but I'd rather let you look ugly and lie to make you feel better.  The reality is, I could have told you the truth, suggested another outfit, you would look gorgeous, and we'd both feel better.  The reality is, America needs to get out of Iraq and focus on some issues in America.  The reality is, America might still have a war economy.  The reality is, many in the church would rather look good on the outside and be filthy on the inside.  The reality is, if we admitted that we do terrible things in the darkness of our closets then we would feel much better about ourselves.  The reality is, we can handle the truth.  We just don't want to.

Vicious Cockpunch of Furious Anger!

In all honesty, I think I'd like to pull out the Vicious Cockpunch of Furious Anger today.  Sadly, I can't use it because that's called abuse of a student, and because the student in question is female.  But, still... I'm irked.  Students know that they are not supposed to have their phones out during class.  This particular student has been warned multiple times.  By me.  In class.  Last time I tried to take her phone away, she refused, was sent to the office, and the teacher wrote her a referral (collect 9 and I believe you're expelled).

Had the same thing happen today.  Student had her phone out and she was texting in class.  It's not that hard to spot.  For me, anyways.  Being a martial artist gives me some clues about body language.  I can usually tell when a student is texting.  Their body language shouts across the room, "Oh, me!  Me!  Pick me!  I'm texting!  Yes!  I'm the one doing it!"  So I told the student, "Gimme your phone."  "No."  I repeated myself.  So did she.  "Okay.  Hallway."  "No."  Seems to be her favorite word these days.  So, I had to send her down to the office.  I hope they took her phone away for good.

This student started the semester as a decent kid.  She was a little late from time to time, but nothing horrible. She usually sat quietly, and she did her work.  I dunno what's changed.  But now she's the worst student in my class.  Horrible as it may be to say, I prefer the days when this student is not in class.  Because I know that when she's in class, she doesn't do the work and she distracts other students.  So... yeah.  Today's a day for a Vicious Cockpunch.  Here's to imagination... BAM!

I'm back! With license plates.

My faithful followers (all 5 or 6 of you =P), forgive me.  I have been unfaithful to you.  And I don't mean that in a cheating sense.  Just that I haven't written anything in almost a month.  I'm sorry, Claudia.  My creative juices have been exhausted by the endless stream of lesson plans that I write every week.  But now, I am on break.  Whatever that means.  When you're an upperclassman in college, there's no such thing as break.  Time off of school just means that you have more time to work on papers and projects.  Admit it, you know I'm right.  I've been living this for the last 3 years or so.  Wait... I think it's going on 4.  So when I say that I'm tired of school, I mean it.  This is year 6 for me.  Ugh.  That phrase falls on my ears like a sledgehammer on a flea.  Quite honestly, I need to be done with school.  I'm past my expiration date.  My brain-fluid has gone sour.  My energy has rotted away.  And my social life... well, it's shredded but still there.  Somehow.  Probably because people keep dragging me out of my house.  Anyways.  Just writing a short note to let you, my dear readers, know that I am still alive.  Well... breathing, at any rate.  Adios, amigos.  Until we meet again.

Interesting License Plates Seen This Week
MTN GRL - Combined with a sticker that said "Save the Hemlocks", I had a guess about what the make of the vehicle would be.  And I was right: Subaru Forrester.

CRASH - Seen on the back of a good-looking Pontiac Grand Prix.

IH82BL8 - Apropos.  But hardly me.

Bathroom Pop-Tart!

Amustment of the Day
Walked into the bathroom during lunch break and discovered a student there.  Eating a Pop-Tart.  Apparently he was in Science Lab and was told that he couldn't eat in there.  So he got a bathroom pass.  In order to eat his Pop-Tart.  =D

That's beast! <-- Don't do this at home. Or at school. Or ever.

I've discovered something that irritates me.  Not surprising, really.  After all, I'm sitting in a high school right now.  I have discovered a... distortion... of the English language that I think is just nuts.

Every generation has their own language, their own adjectives.  For our/my generation the words were "cool", "sweet", "awesome", "wicked", and "l33t".  Other hip happening words were "groovy", "tight" and "gnarly".  These, in their own way, are distortions of the English language.  The words were not being used as they were intended; the meaning was changed.  However!  These words remained as adjectives.  Their caste did not change.

In Digital Media, I have been hearing some boys use the word "beast".  They say things like, "That's beast!" or "Doesn't this look beast?".  I understand that each generation is going to come up with its own language.  I respect that fact.  That use of the word, though, feels like sandpaper going across my literary ear.  It sounds wrong.  If the boys had said, "I'm a beast" or "This thing looks like a beast", I'd have been fine.  But what they're doing is a deliberate perversion.  They're using a noun as an adjective!  How idiotic do you have to be to do that?  Ugh.  It boggles the mind.  Their use of the English language... far from beautiful.  Just beast.

Here's a late addition (forgot to put this up yesterday evening).  First line from a student's paper: "I am fist gonad..."  ... Nuff said.