I had an interesting thought about ten minutes before starting this post. It involved my future as a teacher, and I feel it'd be best served done as a narrative...
A new school year, new students, and new hair cut. I felt quite enamored with my life as the final bell rang, signaling the start of the first class of the new year. I remembered, as I place myself securely behind my podium (an idea I got from one of my teachers when I was in high school) in the front of the class, being these bright-eyed young minds on their first day at high school. Yes, when I was their age, high school seemed like it'd be ever-lasting, and I'd quickly found that the system somehow managed to cram four years into what felt like one. "Hi, I'm Ms. Bushman, and I'll be teaching freshman Language Arts this year for those of you who don't switch schedules to be with friends in other classes. I stayed up too late on the internet last night, so instead of assigning you a biographical essay like I had planned, we're going to do some touchy-feely getting to know you type stuff instead. But first, I have to take attendance. Oh, by the way," I say, reaching into my podium, "this is a 'shut-up' ball. If any of you talk while I'm taking attendance, you'll get to see one up close at a faster than stationary velocity."
The class falls silent and I take that as my cue to begin kicking ass and taking names, which, in my vocation, means calling out a name, looking furtively about the room and marking down those students who are obviously morons for missing my class. I make it flawlessly through three names (Jon Allen? Here. Patricia Anderson? Also here. Beau Beaumont? You have a stupid name, but you're also here.) before my brain detects something wrong with my attendance list. "Sakura Brodzinsky?" Sakura, as I know from my many years as an anime fan at their age, is Japanese, and the girl that just raised her hand was clearly Russian or Polish or French. I would wager a month's pay that she was about as Asian as French fries are French. I make an outward gesture of skepticism, in this case raising my eyebrow as if to say, "is that really your name, or is anime in vogue again?"
"That's an interestingly Asian name for a decidedly European girl," I said, trying not to sound too horribly mocking. "How did you get it?"
"Ah, uhm, my mom..." She fell into incoherent mumbling, her face growing red with embarrassment.
"I was named after a character on Star Trek, and even I think that kind of odd," I say, forgetting myself for a moment. She turns beet red. Open mouth, insert foot. A survey around the room and a quick scan of the attendance tells me I've got at least five other students in the same boat. "Which isn't to say it isn't a good name," I say quickly, failing to recover from my blunder.
"What's Star Trek?" one boy asks, unintentionally saving me from the situation at hand.
I'm glad for the topic change. "It was a TV show. It was actually before my time, so I'm not sure why I bother bringing it up in front of you guys. I doubt any of you know what I'm-."
I'm interrupted as another student asks, "wasn't that that show in the Naughties about that Captain Archer guy?"
My face darkens. This has long been a sore spot for me as a fan of the Star Trek universe. "Enterprise was not Star Trek; it was failure."
Anecdotes From The Past Day, Rapid Fire
Last night, I was listening to the version of "Bad Romance" that On The Rocks Does, right? And my dad comes in and says, "Wasn't that in a movie?" I, of course, couldn't think of any movie it might have been, and I tell him so. He doesn't believe me, but he goes away. Twenty minutes later, he comes back to tell me that it was in "Toys," that Robbin Williams movie from 1992. I haven't verified that he's wrong, yet, but I sincerely doubt someone traveled forward/back in time only to put Lady Gaga in that movie. :/
But let's assume they did. Does this place our world in peril? Does watching that movie with Lady Gaga in the room make the universe implode? If so, we'd better make damn sure she never sees it.
I was settling down to watch an episode of Voyager with my mom, when she sat up abruptly and attempted to prevent me from sitting on her glasses. They were on her face, not the chair I was about to sit in. You'd think the fact that she could clearly see me trying to sit in the chair would have tipped her off...
This morning I was talking to my friend, Wes. He tells me he's sick, again. With the flu. I point out that he's sick a lot and that that must suck. He agrees, it does suck. The only advice I can give him, because he's vegetarian, is to take some vitamin D, which he then renders useless by telling me he takes 100% of all the vitamins. Which doesn't mean a whole lot to me, but I don't pursue the issue much further because I rather like talking to him, and if I piss him off he might not talk to me ever again. My entire theory about why he gets sick all the time revolves around his vegetarianism, so I'm having a hard time keeping my damn mouth shut, of course.
Instead of telling him about it, I chose to tell another friend, Ben, about it in fifth period. If you've ever heard me, you know that my natural talking voice is more than quiet. I'm not horribly loud, but I am not quiet. So, I'm telling Ben about it. "So, I was talking a friend of mine earlier. He has the flu, right? And he didn't know why he gets sick so often. And all I could think was, 'It's because you're vegetarian, Wes,' but I couldn't tell him because that'd probably piss him off."
Apparently I was loud enough to break through the constant haze of chatter coming from the table in front of us, because the next thing I know, Emily, a cheerleader (and vegetarian, apparently) turns around and proceeds to interrogate me about what I just said.
"I just said that vegetarians have poor immune systems," I replied confidently. Maybe I'm not completely right, but I've never met a proper vegetarian that actually looked healthy, and Wes has always been both sickly and Vegetarian since I've known him. I'm capable adding two and two and getting Fish, thank you.
She sort of scoffs and turns back around, denying my claim by telling me she's almost never sick, but the quasi-confrontation attracts the attention of another vegetarian at the table, Perry. She says she's almost always sick, a fact I'd never before noticed, and then proceeds to say that she thinks it's not related to her diet.
At some point, I make a rather blunt statement about my dietary preferences, "I like meat. ._."
This was mostly in an attempt to get them to drop the subject, since I know some vegetarians are halfway crazy and motivated by some idea of being morally superior half the time. Don't get me wrong, Perry and Emily are awesome, and quite affable, but I like to keep my opinions between me and my friends for the most part, and a debate about whether meat is bad for you or not isn't exactly something I think should be going on during Brainwashing 563. So I retreat by pretending my government worksheet is ever so interesting, but I can't stop thinking they'll turn around and start up again.
After about ten minutes, I start saying paranoid things to Ben, because it's the best way to get rid of thoughts like those. And I notice that they don't seem to even remember the earlier almost-debate at all, so I tell him as much as in vague but understandable terms. "I guess they've forgotten about earlier," I say, then, under my breath and hiding my mouth, I add, "It's a vegan thing."
If there is such a thing as being diet-ist, I totally qualify. Also, I do not hate vegan/itarians, I know quite a few of them that are quite affable; I don't have a problem with them as people, I have a problem with theirs diets. And, as long as they have the courtesy to keep their anti-carnivorous comments to themselves, I'll keep my comments about reduced brain mass to a minimum.
But let's assume they did. Does this place our world in peril? Does watching that movie with Lady Gaga in the room make the universe implode? If so, we'd better make damn sure she never sees it.
I was settling down to watch an episode of Voyager with my mom, when she sat up abruptly and attempted to prevent me from sitting on her glasses. They were on her face, not the chair I was about to sit in. You'd think the fact that she could clearly see me trying to sit in the chair would have tipped her off...
This morning I was talking to my friend, Wes. He tells me he's sick, again. With the flu. I point out that he's sick a lot and that that must suck. He agrees, it does suck. The only advice I can give him, because he's vegetarian, is to take some vitamin D, which he then renders useless by telling me he takes 100% of all the vitamins. Which doesn't mean a whole lot to me, but I don't pursue the issue much further because I rather like talking to him, and if I piss him off he might not talk to me ever again. My entire theory about why he gets sick all the time revolves around his vegetarianism, so I'm having a hard time keeping my damn mouth shut, of course.
Instead of telling him about it, I chose to tell another friend, Ben, about it in fifth period. If you've ever heard me, you know that my natural talking voice is more than quiet. I'm not horribly loud, but I am not quiet. So, I'm telling Ben about it. "So, I was talking a friend of mine earlier. He has the flu, right? And he didn't know why he gets sick so often. And all I could think was, 'It's because you're vegetarian, Wes,' but I couldn't tell him because that'd probably piss him off."
Apparently I was loud enough to break through the constant haze of chatter coming from the table in front of us, because the next thing I know, Emily, a cheerleader (and vegetarian, apparently) turns around and proceeds to interrogate me about what I just said.
"I just said that vegetarians have poor immune systems," I replied confidently. Maybe I'm not completely right, but I've never met a proper vegetarian that actually looked healthy, and Wes has always been both sickly and Vegetarian since I've known him. I'm capable adding two and two and getting Fish, thank you.
She sort of scoffs and turns back around, denying my claim by telling me she's almost never sick, but the quasi-confrontation attracts the attention of another vegetarian at the table, Perry. She says she's almost always sick, a fact I'd never before noticed, and then proceeds to say that she thinks it's not related to her diet.
At some point, I make a rather blunt statement about my dietary preferences, "I like meat. ._."
Dramatic Reenactment
This was mostly in an attempt to get them to drop the subject, since I know some vegetarians are halfway crazy and motivated by some idea of being morally superior half the time. Don't get me wrong, Perry and Emily are awesome, and quite affable, but I like to keep my opinions between me and my friends for the most part, and a debate about whether meat is bad for you or not isn't exactly something I think should be going on during Brainwashing 563. So I retreat by pretending my government worksheet is ever so interesting, but I can't stop thinking they'll turn around and start up again.
After about ten minutes, I start saying paranoid things to Ben, because it's the best way to get rid of thoughts like those. And I notice that they don't seem to even remember the earlier almost-debate at all, so I tell him as much as in vague but understandable terms. "I guess they've forgotten about earlier," I say, then, under my breath and hiding my mouth, I add, "It's a vegan thing."
If there is such a thing as being diet-ist, I totally qualify. Also, I do not hate vegan/itarians, I know quite a few of them that are quite affable; I don't have a problem with them as people, I have a problem with theirs diets. And, as long as they have the courtesy to keep their anti-carnivorous comments to themselves, I'll keep my comments about reduced brain mass to a minimum.
Cows Eat Grass? No Wai!
Technically this is old news, but it came to my desk this evening, and I found it amusing enough to share.
Cows eat grass. Don't roll your eyes and balk at the idea; it's an indisputable fact, Iowa. Even your cows have, at some point in their lives, eaten grass. No, I'm not talking about grass as in corn is sort of a variety of grass. Not only is that missing the point, it's also being inaccurate, as what you feed your cows is the grain that results from growing the "grass" that is corn. Iowa. You need to shut your lips and learn, right now.
At some point in 2010, before June 27th, to be more exact, Ricardo Salvador applied for the directorship of Iowa State University's Leopold Center. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky Iowans and their reliance on corn as a crop. Indeed, it was a single statement about the role of grass in the way meat ought to be produced that ruined his chances.
The remark that may have sunk Mr. Salvador's candidacy came 37 minutes into his on-campus presentation. While discussing a research project in New York State, he mentioned meat being "produced in the natural way that meat should be produced, which is on lands suitable for grasses and perennial crops." - The Chronicle Of Higher Education, June 27, 2010Cows eat gra- excuse me, I'm supposed to say cows eat corn, right? Do I get the job? No? Damn.
Bloody Murder
So, I'm well on my way to graduating. But that's not why I'm posting.
Yesterday during fourth period, we were chilling out, right? Suddenly, out of nowhere, someone out in the halls starts screaming. This isn't the same as the screaming we're almost used to; the gleeful cries of freshman demanded a beating are a regular occurrence during our class. No, this was a scream that chilled me to the very bone; someone was being murdered. I was sure of it. But I didn't want to go out and see what was going on. What if doing so would have made me the next stabbing victim?
We laughed nervously. It was alright, right? They'd- they'd tell us if we had any reason to worry, right? This wasn't like when they found the gun case in the locker rooms last year; we weren't locked down or anything. And if we were, they'd tell us why this time, right? Right? ...Right?
Class ended shortly after that. I couldn't get that scream off my mind. Someone had to know what happened. All I had to do was ask around, right? Surely someone could tell me what happened. I needed to know.
I had a brief urge to treat my investigation as a noir. But then I thought against it; how much did I actually know about noir? Almost nothing. Besides, narrating my own actions would just distract me from the investigation, and that wouldn't be very useful.
By the end of the day, I knew one thing: these screams had not been a singular occurrence. Crystal described almost exactly what happened to us except for one detail: her experience took place in a different hallway in fifth period. Holy shit. I also knew one other thing, and it was that the choir seemed to be the only ones that heard these screams. No one else I talked to heard them, not a single person. Things like that don't just go unnoticed. There's more here than meets the eye, and I'm not entirely sure I want to go digging up graves to find out what.
Coincidently, the event gave me an idea for a side-project entitled, "Ploughton's Screamer," located here. I really shouldn't start stuff until I've actually decided what's going to happen, but, oh well. Too late now. XD
Yesterday during fourth period, we were chilling out, right? Suddenly, out of nowhere, someone out in the halls starts screaming. This isn't the same as the screaming we're almost used to; the gleeful cries of freshman demanded a beating are a regular occurrence during our class. No, this was a scream that chilled me to the very bone; someone was being murdered. I was sure of it. But I didn't want to go out and see what was going on. What if doing so would have made me the next stabbing victim?
We laughed nervously. It was alright, right? They'd- they'd tell us if we had any reason to worry, right? This wasn't like when they found the gun case in the locker rooms last year; we weren't locked down or anything. And if we were, they'd tell us why this time, right? Right? ...Right?
Class ended shortly after that. I couldn't get that scream off my mind. Someone had to know what happened. All I had to do was ask around, right? Surely someone could tell me what happened. I needed to know.
I had a brief urge to treat my investigation as a noir. But then I thought against it; how much did I actually know about noir? Almost nothing. Besides, narrating my own actions would just distract me from the investigation, and that wouldn't be very useful.
By the end of the day, I knew one thing: these screams had not been a singular occurrence. Crystal described almost exactly what happened to us except for one detail: her experience took place in a different hallway in fifth period. Holy shit. I also knew one other thing, and it was that the choir seemed to be the only ones that heard these screams. No one else I talked to heard them, not a single person. Things like that don't just go unnoticed. There's more here than meets the eye, and I'm not entirely sure I want to go digging up graves to find out what.
Coincidently, the event gave me an idea for a side-project entitled, "Ploughton's Screamer," located here. I really shouldn't start stuff until I've actually decided what's going to happen, but, oh well. Too late now. XD
The Guilt Cycle
You may have heard about Hyperbole and a Half (that link goes to the exact post I'm going to mention in three seconds). It's an awesome blog, and you really ought to go read it if you don't already, because I can't not laugh at most of the things posted there. The specific post I'm sort of referencing here is the post on why she'll never be an adult.
After reading it twice, I know for a fact that I, too, will never be an adult. In fact, I'm not even cut out for being on the internet. I get pulled into the guilt spiral almost immediately when I go to deviantart, because I'll leave some messages in my inbox every time I routinely clean it out. And then they'll be there, telling me to deal with them every time I use the internet, because I have a chrome ad-on that tells me how many message my dA has. But I'll have none of that, because I want to do something more important, like write or watch Star Trek.
So they sit there for weeks, constantly growing in number with every passing hour, until I have thousands of them. I'll feel bad about not checking them, but I'll pretend they don't exist because I simply do not have the time or the inclination to spend five hours looking through deviations and journals and comments and activity messages and news articles and polls and -shot-. And the number of messages continues to grow, and my guilt and tendency toward avoiding the problem grow along with it. Until, finally, I'm somehow forced to go into my inbox and delete everything that is not said DIRECTLY TO ME. Journals, deviations, polls, news articles, all of them. Until I'm left with just my comments, replies, and activities feed. And then I post a journal, reply to a number of the comments and disappear with messages left in my inbox only to start the entire, horrible cycle all over again.
I can't say this is necessarily a bad thing. I'm exponentially more productive when I'm NOT spend four hours a day on dA waiting for new messages to show up because I don't want to leave for fear that I'll miss one, holy mother of God, I'll miss one fucking message. And I usually do that because I have homework that I don't want to do. Or I'm stuck on my novel in a way that could easily be remedied by getting the heck off dA. But no, I refresh the page 200 times and reply almost instantly to EVERYTHING.
My novel usually flourishes when I'm not using dA. Can you guess why?
After reading it twice, I know for a fact that I, too, will never be an adult. In fact, I'm not even cut out for being on the internet. I get pulled into the guilt spiral almost immediately when I go to deviantart, because I'll leave some messages in my inbox every time I routinely clean it out. And then they'll be there, telling me to deal with them every time I use the internet, because I have a chrome ad-on that tells me how many message my dA has. But I'll have none of that, because I want to do something more important, like write or watch Star Trek.
So they sit there for weeks, constantly growing in number with every passing hour, until I have thousands of them. I'll feel bad about not checking them, but I'll pretend they don't exist because I simply do not have the time or the inclination to spend five hours looking through deviations and journals and comments and activity messages and news articles and polls and -shot-. And the number of messages continues to grow, and my guilt and tendency toward avoiding the problem grow along with it. Until, finally, I'm somehow forced to go into my inbox and delete everything that is not said DIRECTLY TO ME. Journals, deviations, polls, news articles, all of them. Until I'm left with just my comments, replies, and activities feed. And then I post a journal, reply to a number of the comments and disappear with messages left in my inbox only to start the entire, horrible cycle all over again.
I can't say this is necessarily a bad thing. I'm exponentially more productive when I'm NOT spend four hours a day on dA waiting for new messages to show up because I don't want to leave for fear that I'll miss one, holy mother of God, I'll miss one fucking message. And I usually do that because I have homework that I don't want to do. Or I'm stuck on my novel in a way that could easily be remedied by getting the heck off dA. But no, I refresh the page 200 times and reply almost instantly to EVERYTHING.
My novel usually flourishes when I'm not using dA. Can you guess why?
A White Hair
Please excuse my lack of humor. Today was not enjoyable, I've just woken up from a nap (making me feel crappier than when I'm legitimately ill), and I have a head ache. I want to complain, not joke. Deal with it.
Today has been relatively horrible, on most fronts. I went to bed at the same time, in the same condition, last night as I did the night before and, for whatever reason, I woke up this morning to the violent urge to just roll over and pretend life wasn't applicable to me. God, I wish life wasn't applicable to me. Maybe if I didn't stay up until two a.m. reading/writing, I'd be less tired, you say? Well, I'd love to point out that until exactly today, I haven't been particularly tired on this schedule, and, while I know it's not a healthy schedule to keep, I tend to make up for the lost hours by taking involuntary naps from four to five p.m through to sevenish. I blame my lack of energy on the weather - I was told there might be snow today, which would result in a "snow day," but no, no snow day for us. Instead the temperature jumps something like ten degrees over night. I don't miss freezing my ass off on the way home, but if it was going to be that cold, it could have at least had the decency to snow well enough to get me out of school.
But that's not really important right now, is it?
After three horrible class periods in which I wanted nothing more than to be any where that was not school, preferably home, and a lunch period that was enjoyable only because I was too busy watching Mason and Steven be jerks to be bothered by that one guy and his girlfriend being lovey-dovey enough to make me punch something, I was subjected first to listening to my Brainwashing teacher go over the notes for this chapter and then another part of a movie about Jesse Owens. I wasn't receptive to either bit in the least and followed the example set by my friend, Ben, who obviously wasn't paying attention as evidenced by his head being on his arms. This was either a genius move or a huge mistake, because I eventually started to doze off.
But! Before I took to nearly sleeping through the remained of class, I saw out of the corner of my eye a hair amongst my hairs that just did not look right. Having no shortage of hair, I delicately plucked the hair from my head, and I assure you, it was attached. It was entirely too light, I knew. I have dark blonde hair; it rides the fence between blonde and brown. This hair was much much lighter almost... Oh my fucking god, I have a white hair.
In all actuality, I didn't react quite so violently to the presence of a white hair on my head. I was curious, since I know that stress does not in fact give you grey hair, contrary to popular belief. After a while, I decided to ignore my knowledge and just be content with the idea that I had a white hair that was most definitely caused by all the shit I, being a senior in my school, have been forced to endure as a rite of passage. It was not a sign of knowledge or dignity; it was a sign of obedience, and I promptly discarded it. The only reason I was/am going along with their stupidass requirements, some of which are less stupid than others, was/is because I'd already wasted three years on LHS before I got it in my head that I was too fucking tired of it to care in the least about anything related to it. Also, I can't mooch three free, twelve-credit terms of college off them if I quit now, as much as I'd like to give my school the double bird and walk away.
Today has been relatively horrible, on most fronts. I went to bed at the same time, in the same condition, last night as I did the night before and, for whatever reason, I woke up this morning to the violent urge to just roll over and pretend life wasn't applicable to me. God, I wish life wasn't applicable to me. Maybe if I didn't stay up until two a.m. reading/writing, I'd be less tired, you say? Well, I'd love to point out that until exactly today, I haven't been particularly tired on this schedule, and, while I know it's not a healthy schedule to keep, I tend to make up for the lost hours by taking involuntary naps from four to five p.m through to sevenish. I blame my lack of energy on the weather - I was told there might be snow today, which would result in a "snow day," but no, no snow day for us. Instead the temperature jumps something like ten degrees over night. I don't miss freezing my ass off on the way home, but if it was going to be that cold, it could have at least had the decency to snow well enough to get me out of school.
But that's not really important right now, is it?
After three horrible class periods in which I wanted nothing more than to be any where that was not school, preferably home, and a lunch period that was enjoyable only because I was too busy watching Mason and Steven be jerks to be bothered by that one guy and his girlfriend being lovey-dovey enough to make me punch something, I was subjected first to listening to my Brainwashing teacher go over the notes for this chapter and then another part of a movie about Jesse Owens. I wasn't receptive to either bit in the least and followed the example set by my friend, Ben, who obviously wasn't paying attention as evidenced by his head being on his arms. This was either a genius move or a huge mistake, because I eventually started to doze off.
But! Before I took to nearly sleeping through the remained of class, I saw out of the corner of my eye a hair amongst my hairs that just did not look right. Having no shortage of hair, I delicately plucked the hair from my head, and I assure you, it was attached. It was entirely too light, I knew. I have dark blonde hair; it rides the fence between blonde and brown. This hair was much much lighter almost... Oh my fucking god, I have a white hair.
In all actuality, I didn't react quite so violently to the presence of a white hair on my head. I was curious, since I know that stress does not in fact give you grey hair, contrary to popular belief. After a while, I decided to ignore my knowledge and just be content with the idea that I had a white hair that was most definitely caused by all the shit I, being a senior in my school, have been forced to endure as a rite of passage. It was not a sign of knowledge or dignity; it was a sign of obedience, and I promptly discarded it. The only reason I was/am going along with their stupidass requirements, some of which are less stupid than others, was/is because I'd already wasted three years on LHS before I got it in my head that I was too fucking tired of it to care in the least about anything related to it. Also, I can't mooch three free, twelve-credit terms of college off them if I quit now, as much as I'd like to give my school the double bird and walk away.
The Worst Hour
Possibly the worst hour of them all to finally break through the wall of bricks that is writers' block is 02:00 on Monday. Mentally, you feel like it's still Sunday, still the weekend. But you know that tomorrow is Monday, and you need sleep so you can drag your sleep-starved carcass out of bed and cover about ten blocks in five minutes to make it to school with plenty of time to experience the first "I fucking hate my life" moment before your first class. But you've just broken the writer's equivalent of the sound barrier, and you don't want to chance allowing the barrier to rebuild itself through your inaction.
So you allot yourself an hour to write, because that is literally all you can spare before you run the risk of falling asleep during the eternally boring movie that the substitute in Brainwashing 405 is being forced to show because she obviously can't be trusted to make the class work on the worksheet the regular teacher assigned the week before. And you make wonderful progress, nearly a thousand words in that short hour! But, alas, it is far too short, and you go to sleep feeling apprehensive, as though you've got a limited amount of time to complete your novel, before the wormhole into genius closes forever. You try to distract yourself by rolling over and brainstorming some situations your characters might be forced into, but that only makes you want to write more. And, worse yet, it makes you want to write scenes that haven't happened yet, and may very well be obsolete by the time they become relevant.
At some point, despite the fact that thinking about your novel and your life only makes you more restless, you manage to drift off into a state of subconscious existence, in which you are vaguely aware of your world and the world of your dreams, and you have control over the events, albeit limited control, in the dreams you won't remember even the smallest bit of in the morning. You wake up at eight and wonder why it is that sleep never seems to last long enough. In the blink of an eye, you have passed five hours, but you don't remember any of it, and only the knowledge that it's morning can convince you that it isn't still three in the morning.
You have twenty minutes of free time, and in your groggy state, you realize something vitally important - you broke the writers' block. After obtaining a cup of coffee and pulling on your clothes for the day, you sit down and proceed to write, caring little for the fact that, because you only have two hands and both of them are in use, your coffee is getting cooler (it's almost cool enough to guzzle now!) and the clock is warning you to slow down with its tick-tocking. But you can't slow down, because the minute you do, you realize that it's 8:22 and you were supposed to initialize the final stages of getting ready for the day an entire two minutes ago! Vainly, you safely remove your jump drive, because if you were to lose the data on it due to laziness, you'd lose your entire life's work, because you haven't made a back-up in a month (which isn't as big of a problem as you make it out to be, since you haven't done a whole lot in a month except watch Star Trek and bide your time until, finally, you're free of the dreaded Phys, Ed. class that has been forced upon you by your school's graduation requirements), and you tuck it into your backpack, thinking, Maybe I'll get a chance to work on my novel today. I need the stupid thing either way, since we're working on the Constant-Downer Projects in seventh.
By the end of the day, the writer's block has healed itself, and you're back to square one. Why? Because life as we know it was not created to accommodate the whim's of the writers' muse. No, it was created by the artless for the artless, artistically crafted in such a way as to fully disrupt the functions of those of us with higher aspirations than working the night shift at Seven-Eleven; those with higher aspirations, even, than the multi-million dollar salaries of J.P. Morgan executives. We were created to ascend to a higher level of esteem, to record the world as it truly is in a way that no history textbook could ever hope to achieve. We embody the thoughts and feelings of the people of our generation, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let the students of tomorrow's literature classes think that the young women of this age lacked the higher brain functions required to think of anything more than attractive males and the prospect of romance. The females of today think of more than just hot guys and how to seduce them; they're obsessed with food, too.
On a more serious note, someday, I will learn how to use Blogger's template designer... thing... and then I'll create my own design, because, really, this one's so generic.
So you allot yourself an hour to write, because that is literally all you can spare before you run the risk of falling asleep during the eternally boring movie that the substitute in Brainwashing 405 is being forced to show because she obviously can't be trusted to make the class work on the worksheet the regular teacher assigned the week before. And you make wonderful progress, nearly a thousand words in that short hour! But, alas, it is far too short, and you go to sleep feeling apprehensive, as though you've got a limited amount of time to complete your novel, before the wormhole into genius closes forever. You try to distract yourself by rolling over and brainstorming some situations your characters might be forced into, but that only makes you want to write more. And, worse yet, it makes you want to write scenes that haven't happened yet, and may very well be obsolete by the time they become relevant.
At some point, despite the fact that thinking about your novel and your life only makes you more restless, you manage to drift off into a state of subconscious existence, in which you are vaguely aware of your world and the world of your dreams, and you have control over the events, albeit limited control, in the dreams you won't remember even the smallest bit of in the morning. You wake up at eight and wonder why it is that sleep never seems to last long enough. In the blink of an eye, you have passed five hours, but you don't remember any of it, and only the knowledge that it's morning can convince you that it isn't still three in the morning.
You have twenty minutes of free time, and in your groggy state, you realize something vitally important - you broke the writers' block. After obtaining a cup of coffee and pulling on your clothes for the day, you sit down and proceed to write, caring little for the fact that, because you only have two hands and both of them are in use, your coffee is getting cooler (it's almost cool enough to guzzle now!) and the clock is warning you to slow down with its tick-tocking. But you can't slow down, because the minute you do, you realize that it's 8:22 and you were supposed to initialize the final stages of getting ready for the day an entire two minutes ago! Vainly, you safely remove your jump drive, because if you were to lose the data on it due to laziness, you'd lose your entire life's work, because you haven't made a back-up in a month (which isn't as big of a problem as you make it out to be, since you haven't done a whole lot in a month except watch Star Trek and bide your time until, finally, you're free of the dreaded Phys, Ed. class that has been forced upon you by your school's graduation requirements), and you tuck it into your backpack, thinking, Maybe I'll get a chance to work on my novel today. I need the stupid thing either way, since we're working on the Constant-Downer Projects in seventh.
By the end of the day, the writer's block has healed itself, and you're back to square one. Why? Because life as we know it was not created to accommodate the whim's of the writers' muse. No, it was created by the artless for the artless, artistically crafted in such a way as to fully disrupt the functions of those of us with higher aspirations than working the night shift at Seven-Eleven; those with higher aspirations, even, than the multi-million dollar salaries of J.P. Morgan executives. We were created to ascend to a higher level of esteem, to record the world as it truly is in a way that no history textbook could ever hope to achieve. We embody the thoughts and feelings of the people of our generation, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let the students of tomorrow's literature classes think that the young women of this age lacked the higher brain functions required to think of anything more than attractive males and the prospect of romance. The females of today think of more than just hot guys and how to seduce them; they're obsessed with food, too.
On a more serious note, someday, I will learn how to use Blogger's template designer... thing... and then I'll create my own design, because, really, this one's so generic.
For lack of a better, more relevant topic...
...I'm going to talk about a fairly humorous event from my very brief stint at Baker Valley Christian School, because, really, what's more amusing than putting a child who would later grow up to be an atheist in a religiously based school where she was forced to memorize bible verses and allowed to sing on a regular basis about... wait for it.... Jesus! Yay!
This is one of the few happy less than horrible memories I have of Baker City, Oregon. Over all, my view of the (very) small town has been irreversibly colored in ugly shades of chartreuse and brown, and for good reason. We owned a shop there, and it was regularly broken into by a rival's teenaged thugs. In school, I was discriminated against by the upper classmen - meaning the second graders - for being the only pudgy girl they knew. I have no doubt that if I had been forced to spend my entire childhood there, I'd be irreversibly damaged and socially broken. But we're not here to angst over my childhood or praise fate for moving me to the more accepting region of Oregon known as the Wilamette Valley. No, we're here to laugh at an incident that occurred when I was in kindergarten.
As a five-six year old, I was less than sociable and I wasn't interested in being friends with some people. One of these people was the only other girl in my class, Brittany, and she desperately wanted to be my friend. Looking back, I feel bad about the way I treated her, because I viewed her as little more than an annoyance. I was much more interested in playing with the boys, particularly Daniel, who I had an adorable little crush on, than I was in playing with Brittany. It helped that I wasn't exactly the kind of little girl who liked to play with Barbie dolls.
It was Barbie and her horrifically child-inappropriate amounts of sex appeal that got my childhood self in trouble with my teacher for, as near as I can remember, the first time. It was lunch time, and back then we were allowed to bring toys to school, so I had a Barbie or two in my purple, plastic, unknown-cartoon-themed lunchbox, or something along those lines, and I decided that today was an okay day to play with Brittany. Days like this usually resulted in us playing some variety of "house," if this particular incident is anything to judge by. And, probably because I was older, I ended up playing the mom and she ended up playing the teenaged daughter who, apparently, had a boyfriend.
Now, unlike most six-year-olds, I had already seen several R-rated movies, and I had a rough idea of what sex was - it was when a lady and a man got in bed together and wrestled naked. I may also have had an idea from an incident out of my memory where I apparently walked in on my parents - this should be relieble information, given that it's coming from my mom. I like to imagine that I said something along the lines of, "leave my mommy alone," with the most "D:" like look on my face, when that happened, but that's only because it would make the incident that much funnier. I honestly don't know what happened.
Like most six-year-olds, I didn't know the meaning of "adultery" or understand why Jesus didn't want us to commit it, only that it was bad. So I had no idea that sex and adultery were somewhat on the same bandwidth when Mom, my Barbie, started telling Daughter, Brittany's Barbie, not to have sex with her boyfriend, being very adamant about the fact and kind of loud, because I've always had a loud inside voice.
Take a moment to comprehend this fully. My teacher probably never saw anything like it before or after, a six-year old adamantly ordering her friend's Barbie not to have sex. I could have been the poster child for the abstinence movement: "See, kids, even a six-year-old knows that having sex before you're married is a bad idea." Instead of calling the abstinence people and tipping them off to my obsolete point of view, my teacher did the sensible thing and told me that it was a bad word and not to use it.
I wasn't quite sure why it was a bad word. I didn't really know what it was, sex. But I obeyed, filing that word away with almost everything my father said back then - and now, really - on the list of words that I am not to use, ever. How amusing that, out of all those words, sex is probably the only one left that I hesitate to use even when it's appropriate.
Sex this!
Chances are you may have heard of the new editions of Mark Twain's Huck Finn coming out that have taken the "n-word" out of the book and replaced it with "slave." Okay. I respect their ridiculous need to be politically correct under the guise of "updating" the timeless classic. However, I cannot abide by their decision - for one, I firmly believe that censorship is one of the many things making our children stupider and is public enemy number 2 (number 1 starts with a b and ends with an anksters). Even if that weren't the case, however, there is no possible way I would ever be able to agree with them.
Slave does not hold the same gravity, or even the same meaning, as, pardon my nineteenth century Mississippian, nigger. It's like taking the word "fuck" and replacing it with "sex." Yes, sex is commonly considered by most to be less offensive a term (I see them as equally harmless, but whatever) but it's hardly the same word. Instead of saying, "I'm gonna fuck you up if you censor this book," which implies physical violence, you would be forced to say, "I'm gonna sex you up if you censor this book." The latter, of course, implies that you are going to sleep with whoever is responsible for the censorship. Sex this. I'm gonna sexing use whatever the sex kind of language I sexing want! Censorship, SEX. I'd don't need this scat.
Twain used such language to invoke thought in the reader, from what I've heard. Replacing the words he used with more moderns terms is like taking the bible and replacing every reference to God with Science. It's bound to piss someone off, and it ruins the entire book. Instead of censoring the books, they could simply rewrite them. After well over a hundred years, Huck Finn is most definitely a work in the realm of public domain. It could be about an alien race that has been enslaved by another alien race. They could have a special, nonsensical, derogatory term for this enslaved race and not hurt anyone's feelings. Except Twain's. He'd probably be rolling in his grave the minute they started writing, but I find it hard to believe he isn't already trying to claw his way back to the surface to put a stop to this idiocy. If I were him, I would.
I wish people would get it through their sexing heads - words are only as powerful as you make them, because words are intrinsically neautral. They have no meaning until we give them meaning, and if we give them a negative meaning, it's our job to reform them, like an alcoholic. We don't hide our alcoholics away in a closet for eternity, at least, most of us don't; no, we send them to therapy until they magically become better by introducing themselves as "BobAndIHaveAProblem" and talking about why their name has around five extra capital letters. And so I introduce to you "NiggerAndIHaveAProblem." Together, we can reform him.
Slave does not hold the same gravity, or even the same meaning, as, pardon my nineteenth century Mississippian, nigger. It's like taking the word "fuck" and replacing it with "sex." Yes, sex is commonly considered by most to be less offensive a term (I see them as equally harmless, but whatever) but it's hardly the same word. Instead of saying, "I'm gonna fuck you up if you censor this book," which implies physical violence, you would be forced to say, "I'm gonna sex you up if you censor this book." The latter, of course, implies that you are going to sleep with whoever is responsible for the censorship. Sex this. I'm gonna sexing use whatever the sex kind of language I sexing want! Censorship, SEX. I'd don't need this scat.
Twain used such language to invoke thought in the reader, from what I've heard. Replacing the words he used with more moderns terms is like taking the bible and replacing every reference to God with Science. It's bound to piss someone off, and it ruins the entire book. Instead of censoring the books, they could simply rewrite them. After well over a hundred years, Huck Finn is most definitely a work in the realm of public domain. It could be about an alien race that has been enslaved by another alien race. They could have a special, nonsensical, derogatory term for this enslaved race and not hurt anyone's feelings. Except Twain's. He'd probably be rolling in his grave the minute they started writing, but I find it hard to believe he isn't already trying to claw his way back to the surface to put a stop to this idiocy. If I were him, I would.
I wish people would get it through their sexing heads - words are only as powerful as you make them, because words are intrinsically neautral. They have no meaning until we give them meaning, and if we give them a negative meaning, it's our job to reform them, like an alcoholic. We don't hide our alcoholics away in a closet for eternity, at least, most of us don't; no, we send them to therapy until they magically become better by introducing themselves as "BobAndIHaveAProblem" and talking about why their name has around five extra capital letters. And so I introduce to you "NiggerAndIHaveAProblem." Together, we can reform him.
I promised you humor, but...
...I've got something completely awesome to share first:
This is a good friend of mine, Steven. It's the result of his senior project, and I'm simply wowed by how awesome it is. I can't even begin to imagine how much work he put into it, but he did good. Real good. I don't even particularly like this kind of music, but I find myself wanting to listen to it several times in a row. Heh
I will find something humorous to talk about next time, I promise.
This is a good friend of mine, Steven. It's the result of his senior project, and I'm simply wowed by how awesome it is. I can't even begin to imagine how much work he put into it, but he did good. Real good. I don't even particularly like this kind of music, but I find myself wanting to listen to it several times in a row. Heh
I will find something humorous to talk about next time, I promise.
A Simple Observation
I've been fighting with myself about this post for at least an hour now; on one hand, I really want to share the information within, because it's kind of... interesting, provided you enjoy insights into the mind of a social recluse. But, on the other, it's not very amusing. So, I'll throw it up and then find something amusing to post after it, because this is supposed to be a humorous blog. So, without further ado, the post that we're going to pretend doesn't exist:
After writing myself into a corner, I always have this urge to go back and figure out where I went wrong, and scrap everything after so that I can start fresh from there and hopefully fix my blunder. Fighting this urge usually results in me suddenly finding interest in other things for weeks on end - such as video games, reading, or other story ideas. I'm currently going through one of those phases with The Cataclysm, not because of something that I've already written, but because I'm not entirely sure how to proceed with what I have planned. I know everything that's going to happen between where I'm at currently and the end of the first 'part' planned out, it's just a matter of writing it, since, at this point, I don't foresee a whole lot changing.
Anyhow, as a result of this break, I've allowed myself to pick up a story idea that I'd unsuccessfully started writing on at some point last year or the year before, before I started seriously working on The Cataclysm. I'm currently calling it The Advent, after the starship of the same name in the story, and its elements are probably as far removed from The Cataclysm's as I can personally get, seeing as it's an interstellar adventure novel. Depending on how far into it I get before I go back to working on The Cataclysm, I may or may not put up a page about it, possibly with pictures of whatever sketches I have at that point (currently I've got a uniform designed, and a preliminary design of The Advent and the generic Martian shuttle pod). Hopefully by this time I'll get around to editing "The Novel" with a re-title and by adding some character information/sketches and, possibly, an excerpt, which I'll them mirror on the new page for The Advent.
So, in light of my new novel, and the novel experience of having my writing stimulated by a TV show, I've been trying to find music to listen to that is suitable for the new story. At first, I thought that listening to hip-hop, which is one of the genres I regularly listen to, might satisfy this need. I was wrong. So I went the techno route, ignoring the fact that techno and I haven't ever gotten along very well. I forced myself to forget that the last time I heard a Daft Punk song, I cussed a lot and proceeded to delete the song from my Zune with malice. I started with Dragostea Din Tei, which is a song that I consider to be both techno and full of win, and, after maxing out my skipping ability, I said, "Techno? Tech no!" and deleted the station, because I seriously cannot listen to that stuff. After that, I quit. If techno and hip-hop didn't work, there was just nothing I could think of that would serve my purpose. Luckily, I took a shower this morning, and one of the songs that came on the radio during said shower was by Nine Inch Nails. I had a previous fascination with the band a few years ago, and, after thinking about it a little, I realized that music similar to theirs was exactly what I needed.
This episode has led me to wonder - is it possible that the reason I got stuck on The Cataclysm due to some change in the music I've been listening to? Quite possibly. When the new My Chemical Romance album came out, I think I got stuck at right around that time, and I haven't really gotten into the habit of listening to any one specific playlist since then - in fact I've just, kind of, been listening to everything in my collection. If that's true, then it's no wonder I can't write on that story right now. I haven't been listening to my angry, violent metal music nearly enough to stimulate my mind for it! How am I supposed to write a perfectly calm exchange between characters, or a tragic death scene, without an angry man singing at me? It's impossible!
As far as that goes, I thought it might be interesting to know that The Cataclysm has a distinct metal feel, to me, now that I've come to this conclusion, just as The Advent has an industrial feel. Because, you know, the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the fact that the novel has a distinct romantic theme and less action than it ought to is a guitar riff and Corey Taylor screaming into the mic.
It's 4 am, I'm not concerned with grammar or punction at the moment. It's blasphemous, I know, but it's true.
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