29 August 2001

[A Semester is How Long?]

well, school started this week; all the kids are back. new freshman are struggling to understand block scheduling. hell, due to the ineptness of the administration, all the faculty and returning students are having problems adjusting to the new schedule, despite the fact that we practiced block scheduling for two weeks last year. oi vey. it's this kind of shit that causes kids to say, fuck authority. i mean, if they see principals and other adminstrators fucking things up, how then will they put their faiths in the governments and institutions that rule the real world (note: this is not to say that the government *is* trustworthy, because, clearly, it's not . . .) to most of the kids at the high school, school is all they have. it is is their only source of rules and learning. and on top of that it's often their first experience with authority figures. so if your principal - the leader of one of your "homes" for four years - is a disorganized, anti-social, piece o' crap, aren't you going to expect that the rest of the world leaders are like that. sounds irrational, yes. but when you live in a small suburban (note: not really like a typical suburb) city like the one i work in, you don't know much of the real world. thus the disorganized principal or administrator is a symbol for corrupt and meager leadership - something that drives us to run from cops, act like criminals, and cause general chaos. yeah, i say fuck the world sometime. but i've seen more the real world than my students. once they see how even more fucked up real leaders in society are - they're gonna shit considering how they're reacting to numbskull school leaders who, in reality, aren't all that important. in other news, i am tired. adjusting to a normal sleeping pattern hurts really bad. on an up note, i'vev made it through two weeks of teaching at miami. 14 more weeks and the semester is over. yippee. i have to admit, i love my class - they're a riot. great personalities. young enough to still be funny and intelligent in immature ways - something i find refreshing after dealing with the chaos of remedial adults (those i tutored at UC and others i will not mention). sirens outside. crimes a plenty in clifton tonite. the music of 45220, where the violent crime rate is above that of the national average. i'm so ::wipe tear from eye:: proud.

26 August 2001

[Organization is Key]

tonite i took on the arduous task of organizing files onto floppy disks. i had disks with papers and files and more papers. i now have a disk for: 1999-2000 graduate courses; 2001 graduate courses, resumes and cover letters; my MEd thesis; various short stories from an american realism course; the ohio writing project; the handouts for the 111 course i'm teaching; writing (poems, short stories, rants) . . . you get the idea. being in college for six years has left me with many files. i cleaned out my "my documents" folder a bit too by filing text/ word files into the appropriate disk. so fun. i also found some stray undergraduate papers and lab reports scattered amoung a few disks which i saved on its own disk despite the fact that i had those and all my undergraduate papers saved on a zip disk. just being cautious. don't want to get rid of anything. besides, the zip disk is accessed through the network (it's directly hooked up to Tom's computer) and accessing the drive would slow down his machine and his game playing. he's my special little gamer nerd. ahhhhh. so cute. in the midst of my file organizing, i found the first website i ever designed as a freshman in college over five years ago. it's not much of a design, though - just a thing. today, high school, hell, grade school kids have websites. and a lot of them look totally kick ass. but there is a problem. most of them are only viewable in internet explorer. they use a lot of iframes and scrolling layers (layers in general are a pain - if a site uses complicated layers, you generally have to create at least two different sites and redirect the user according to his or her browser - duh - why did i just say that?) and text boxes not embedded within a tag. the whole using a text box for aesthetic purposes and not for form purposes is fine, but you still need the form tag - netscape won't allow it otherwise. people tend to bitch about netscape. but in all honesty, if you want to be a serious designer, you have to accomodate and you have to use good code. internet explorer lets you "get away with" certain things. granted, netscape is not my default browser, but it is for many. i'm actually liking netscape 6.0 - but the bugs need to be worked out still.

25 August 2001

[Unbroken]

i just watched unbreakable with bruce willis and samuel l. jackson. very interesting. neato twist at the end. i have to admit, however, i felt sad for the bad guy even after what he did. those of you who have seen it understand. you may think i'm nuts and not understand my point of view, but you get what what i'm saying. i don't like to give away movies so i better shut up before i do. after sleeping until noon or so, i checked my e-mail, lulled around, and then went running. well, more like run, run, run . . . ok, gotta walk, run, run, walk. i so need to get into shape. it sucks when clothes that you spent good money on no longer fit. i have this pair of catherine coatney paints - hot as hell - but they don't look all that great on me now. my goal is to be able to wear them in a couple months. which won't take too much pain and sweat. i just need to tone my butt up a bit. but according to the whistles i got today while running, i must not look to bad. C'est la vie. but then again, most men will whistle or cat call at any chick in spandex.

22 August 2001

[Tonight is Lasagne Night!]

well, i did it. i taught my first college level composition class. and i think i actually did a decent job. we went over the syllabus, my expectations, attendance policies. i had them write for 10-15 minutes on their own definition of education. a few people read theirs. they seem pretty receptive. and nice, too. i was so fearing having evil students. but this is not a two year school. these kids are here to learn, right? i'm forecasting that this semester will be okay. in other news, i'm having issues with my boobs. went bra shopping last nite, only to learn that i have ::ahem:: grown. i guess i shouldn't go into much detail concerning this issue here, but it's so annoying. i ended up not buying a new bra. i could have been measured, but i wasn't in the mood to get my chest eye-balled by an old lady. not very interesting stuff. deal with it.

19 August 2001

[I'd Like to Thank My Baby Momma]

after successfully stuffing myself to bloated bliss with pizza, i watched boxing; saw david tua get beat by chris byrd - definitely not the expected outcome, but good nonetheless. i was rooting for the underdog. don't get me wrong, tua rocks and all, but he got beat - something he couldn't even admit. i find it amusing that all boxers thank "[their] one and only savior, jesus christ" as if god was picking sides. what does the loser say? do they blame it on satan or what? tomorrow i'm gonna force myself to wake up early (i.e. before noon). this sleeping until 2 p.m. has got to stop. then again, i could go to sleep earlier. oh, and i hate sundays. getting up early on a sunday is one of the most hideous things in the entire world. if we could just sleep sunday's away - until 7 p.m. or so, life would be better. i want to wake up and go running; that is if i can find my running stretch-pants and a t-shirt. i so need to do laundry. i can't find anything. tonite i watched - get this - dude, where's my car. it had to be one of the most asinine movies i've subjected my eyes to in a long time. but i laughed. i needed a little bit of stupidity exposure. sometimes it's good to enjoy stoner movies that focus mainly on aliens and boobs. no harm done. pay per view is cheaper than renting a "new release." my blockbuster fee will just have to wait until i feel like renting something. ok, I've made up my mind. i will go running tomorrow. i will. i will. i will. i so need to get back into shape. my weight's fine, but i just feel too . . . comfortable. that's the word. everything has been going well lately. and i've settled into my surroundings. you know how in american beauty, kevin spacey's character is pretty damn miserable and his road to happiness (besides getting high and fantasizing about a high school girl) includes working out? i can identify, because when i'm completely in the gutter i work out and drink (my vice) more. eek gads. i'm not 18 anymore.

15 August 2001

[Culture Queer]

so far i haven't hear any news concerning the english 112 class. part of me thinks that i ought to just step into the waters one foot at a time by teaching the one english 111 class. but then again, an extra two-thousand dollars this semester would be nice also. either way, i won't gripe. i have my syllabus done; only a few typo's to correct. i haven't looked at it today because i wanted to forget it for a while. tomorrow, i will make it error free and make the needed xeroxes. blah. today, i visited with my M.Ed. advisor about various things, including the ohio writing project and teaching college and conservative teaching ideas. i'm starting to like the fact that i'm 23 going on 40; it seems as if i get a lot respect despite the fact that i'm a weirdo. hopefully, i'll be getting my digital camera out of the pawn shop soon so i can take some more pictures. every time my cats do something insane i'm like, damn! i wish i had my camera. i have a regular camera, which is actually very nice, but the instant gratification of a digital, i must confess, is very nice. besides, i'm too broke to buy film; i think there's a finished role of film in my 35mm camera that needs developed. i took some random pictures of my shoes a few months ago for shits and grins; i have a lot of shoes, as do most culture queers. did i just say culture queer? jeesh. my alcohol tolerance has gone way down hill in the last week or so. i've had one bottle of beer, and i'm already light-headed. why this bit of information is relevant, i do not know.

14 August 2001

[Coffee's Good]

my eyes are bugging out of my head. my back is sore. my head pounding. last night i worked on my syllabus for a few hours. it's pretty much finished. but in order that i didn't get distracted by Tom's neurotic video game playing and my urges to surf the web and work on my website, i wrote up my syllabus on my laptop in the living room. with my laptop sitting on the end of my coffee table and me perched, hunched over, on an unruley bean bag chair, i was less than comfortable. ususally, i love sitting there and typing poems and stories. but when it comes to real work, specifically work that i really don't feel like doing, it's hard to stay focused while my butt is sloshing around in a fickle seat. c'est la vie. on top of all this, i was informed yesterday that i might be teaching another english class. and that means, another syllabus must be made. on top of working full time at a high school, this is going to be a lot. but i need the extra money. i want to move. i want a new car. i just want to get out of here, even if that means moving out into the sticks for a while during my stint at miami. i might end up earning my doctorate there. who knows.

12 August 2001

[Damn, I'm Such a Girl Sometimes]

i have successfully managed not to give my homework my full undivided attention today as i aspired to do. however, i have made pretty good progress with the site, despite the fact that i've been fighting on and off hunger pains (which were just done away with thanks to a trip to the grocery) and I've been mulling over what i need to get together for the first week of classes at miami. this is all happening so fast. in other news, sex and the city is on tonite. last night, after frantically searching the hbo signature lineup for tonite and finding no sex and the city, i was quite disturbed. however, just a few minutes ago, i was perusing the channels and saw that the show is on regular HBO tonite. so i selected it so that i get a friendly beep of a reminder at 9pm. i have never been addicted to a television show. i am now. i'm considering renting or even buying the previous season's tapes - maybe the dvd's - just to check out the first two seasons - the seasons i was not a recipient of premium cable. in fact, i was also out the sex and the city loop earlier this year when the cable was turned off. silly me not paying the bill. the last episode i saw right before the cable was turned off was when carried cheated on aiden with big, her ex who was married. shame shame. now that aiden and carrie are back together (listen to me) i won't be so heartbroken watching the drama of their prior break up and carrie's affair. well, I'm gonna work on some of my assignments so that my mind is free in an hour for a beer and tv. ta-ta!

10 August 2001

[Frozen]

so i'm like freezing at work. my fingers move in a slow arc of drooling molasses on a sunday afternoon with no church picnic to attend and no more hot baths to draw; the sunday crossword has been done to death. some of the answers are incorrect, but it's not worth getting the correction fluid out. and that, folks, was my shitty, extended metaphor of the day. it doesn't make much sense. well it does, i s'pose. in a little over a week, i will start my college teaching position. i'm sorta nervous. i've taught college kids before - remedial, but still college level - but i guess my whole unfamiliarity with miami university is what is setting me on edge. not necessarily with the campus - while i still can't tell the buildings apart - it's the type of students that i'm going to be teaching. i really shouldn't be talking about this here. but then again, what are the chances that some college freshman from mu will stumble upon this page . . .??

07 August 2001

[Fight Me, Bitch]

tonite after class, Tom and i are going to watch fights at annie's. nothing like watching two grown men beat the shit out eachother for measly cash prizes and momentary glory. this is supposed to be a take-off of fight club. but as far as i'm concerned, the use of gloves and protective gear dumbs it down, not a little, but a lot. it should be fun, though. i haven't been out in a while - unless you call going to the grocery store "out." in fact, this will actually be the first time i've ever been to annie's while a legal drinking age. that's not to say that i haven't been drunk there before. wait, that's a lie. i was there a little over two years ago - at the age of 21 - but only because Tom was the sound guy for some band. we were only there for a couple hours. i was majorly sick with a sinus infection and pretty doped up on cold medicine, which i just couldn't drink enought of. so i was actually drunk, not off beer. ok, so tonite, i will be going to annie's and drinking legally for the first time ever - if that makes any sense after my twisted anecdote about my addiction to cold medicine. and no i do not endorse underage drinking, especially at clubs. that's what parking lots and older friends are for.