Birds are Hard Core

My Winter Break has begun. It doesn't really feel like it, but I haven't had to listen to obnoxious teenagers rapping along to some funky, fly artist without knowing it, and that's a bonus.

The project of the day, and throughout the week, is to complete the housing arrangements for Young Master Prindle's arrival. About two months ago, I spent a morning of frustration in his room, piecing together the far too many parts of his crib. I realized then that if fathers had to construct baby furniture as a precursor to having a child, there would be millions of fatherless children in the world today. The pieces are confusing enough (the crib has some pieces that I'm convinced were not correctly aligned when they were cut), but the instructions are intolerable. If they were my students' process essays, I'd fail them all.

Today's endeavors took me to the room with a glider chair and changing table to assemble. For the most part, both were easier than that crib. However, while the chair was wonderfully simple, the table frustrated me to know end. I'll admit to some errors as the operator's fault, but other that, the person jotting down instructions should be socked in the mouth. If your going to take the time to tell me that parts D need to have the slats facing in, then you should also tell me the the holes in parts D should be toward a certain direction. I put over half the thing together before realizing I had to go back and fix some things. I later had to go back at the end because the diagrams are always so convoluted with too many images and lines and dashes.

Birds don't have to deal with this when they do their nesting. If they had to create their nests in a similar fassion, matching stick C with twig F while parts A and Q intertwine themselves to create an indention where twigs B,D,H,I,N,W,L,S,X, and P cross, birds would give up living in the trees. Instead they have the God-given brilliance to figure out how to make something stable enough and safe enough to have kids in that doesn't make them want to squawk and tweet profanity for hours on end.

Back to School and NaNoWriMo

Well, school started back yesterday, and I'm glad it did. It was really nice to have something to distract my brain from the weirdness that plagued it last week. However, I was reminded that there are some really brainless people out there. We are filling out forms for the PLAN test (pre-ACT) for my 10th graders. Part of the forms ask for students to identify whether or not the are affiliated with a religion. I've never see so many confused people. "I don't know what to put down." I would ask what church they went to and they would look at me and say, "I have no idea." I know that I wasn't always too observant growing up. But some of these kids go to church every week, and they have no idea what church they go to. Sad.

Even though I told myself I didn't have time, I signed up for NaNoWriMo again. We'll see how it goes. I stated on my idea and feel weird writing so much about vampires, werewolves, and zombies. It's not my usual style or interest, but if things work the way I hope, it could be pretty cool. Well, gotta go. Peace, home-fries.

Should Have Been Updating

Usually, if I don't update, it's because nothing is going on. In the last week, however, my life is packed full of stuff, and all along the way I was thinking, "I need to blog this." Mostly it all boils down to my fear that my laptop (the one from work) will die soon. I don't know how old it is, but I've seen a lot of people I work with shriek with rage as one by one, their older work laptops flicker out. So I've been trying to not use it much this week and instead wait for my wife to come home with her much nicer, much newer laptop on which I feel safe.

By far the coolest and most important thing I've been involved with since last week was my church's community outreach on Sunday. We connected with Lincoln's city mission and sponsored a day at the park for parent's and kids who don't get the opportunity to run around and forget about life. To watch it was like watching a good sunrise. Kids were having a blast, adults were having a good time, and a billion hot dogs were eaten. My favorite moment was a three or four-year-old who dropped an egg during an egg toss. His faced scrunched, his fists balled, and he stomped the hell out of that egg. Yolk flew and splattered. Then he smiled the biggest smile.

I also had some thoughts about stupid people that might make a quality reflection, my wife started her World of Warcraft account again (making me want to follow her lead), and my brother went to Guam yesterday. So, because I've heard that people have often enjoyed my typically short entries, I'll leave you with this and get back to these other things tomorrow.

Registered Trademark

I hate the symbol for trademark and registered trademark. I especially hate how they clutter up the symbols and logos. This is especially true of the many awesome looking designs that frequent our media. My annoyance began a few years ago when I got a new hat with the Batman logo on it. I still like it plenty, but I hate how there's a little, yellow squiggle on the top right hand side of the bat. This little TM blotches our visual landscape and I'm not going to take it.

Then another thought came to me: can anybody use the trademark or registered trademark whenever they want? Are those symbols registered trademarks? I would like to just start putting those marks around my name. Can I do that? If they are registered trademarks, they should have an endless chain of circled "R"s that fade off into infinity.

Rage is Sad

On the corner next to the downtown movie theater, there frequently stands a man with a cross. Every Saturday night, members from a local church stand downtown and preach out warnings to those who might indulge in the less classy forms of entertainment. Typically, I hear a cross-wielding man say things like, "Think of the things you can catch from just one night of pleasure. Is it worth it?"

I've always thought it a weird thing to preach about in front of the movie theater. If that's the message, I'd mosey down to the strip club a few blocks away.

Regardless of the message or the methodology, I feel a sense of pity and admiration. First of all, they are acting on something they feel is right. In a way they have deemed appropriate, they stand at the corner and throw out John the Baptist's message of "Repent." For that, I admire.

This last weekend, though, I began the feel the pity. Often, this preacher is approached by the rudest of the rude. They laugh, swear, mock, question. As my wife and I walked by on the way to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine (I'll talk about this tomorrow), I heard the voice of the angriest observer.

"Where the fuck did Adam and Ever come from?"

There was nothing casual about the question. It was yelled, spat out in contempt. A friend added, "Where did God come from?"

"Yeah," the antagonist yelled. "Where the fuck did God come from?"

The man with the cross (more admiration) didn't get angry at all. He responded with quick little bits that his attackers wouldn't hear.

As I walked on, the pity fell on me. These scoffers won't listen. They never will. They are likely to never accept the idea that God has always been and will always be. They aren't looking for truth. They search for the lies and the lies only. For what reasons I don't know. Unless the receive a Paul-esque experience (the Almighty Christ knocking them to the ground and blinding them), they are likely to stand outside of the new Jerusalem and still bellow, "Where did you come from?"

Signs of the Times

I had a student confuse Mark Twain with Bruce Wayne.

Some People...

This has just been a good week for people to say weird things.

I assigned my composition class the task of looking up images on Google and then describing them in as much detail as possible. The idea was for them to find flowers, cars, landscapes, anything that would be school appropriate. However, before I could get the point of clarifying what the students should look for a student piped up.

"Can we look at things that are sexual in nature?"

I was thrown off enough that he even asked. But after all the girls called him a pervert, he just shrugged and said, "Can't a guy ask a question?"

Turkey Day...Hmm...

I've heard it before, but this year it seems to be showing up more frequently.

"Happy Turkey Day."

It was kind of amusing at first, but over time and with an increase of it's use, the phrase has started to bother me. Thanksgiving should be for just that: giving thanks. It's a small thing, but with the "Turkey Day" references on the rise, I worry about the holiday. It has been a favorite of mine, in fact probably the favorite, so it pains me to have this happening. I know that there won't be a total sweep across the nation, but where most people don't look to the bright side of things and struggle to be appreciative of anything, I hate seeing the term "Thanksgiving" fade.

Also, I have felt that Thanksgiving has been one of the least commercialized holiday we have. And though I think that will still be the case (as Christmas dominates the last quarter of the year), I don't want the day to be more about food and (I hate the name) Black Friday.

So slay the turkey talk and move on to loving what's around you. For me it's

A fire in the fireplace
My cat half-sleeping, half-purring in my lap
My in-laws in my house (because mine are awesome)
My job and the students that make me laugh
Aikido
Movies that conjure memories and fantasy (Big Fish especially)
My friends that I see almost every week that I never get tired of
A guitar that makes me live despite my ability to fully utilize it
My Bible in which I love to find new things that make me feel like God is smiling at me

And these are just some things that are recent obsessions.

And We Keep Getting Closer

I watched Idiocracy last night...again. This is at least the third time I've sat and let my mind be reduced to mush while, at the same time, let it rise to become it to a critical thinking and analytical machine.

Like other Mike Judge works, the film is simultaneously brilliant and dumber than a box of hair. It's his art-showing us how things are or how they will be while allowing us to see the ever-so-obvious flaws of our society.

During last night's viewing, I had a new wave of terror as I watched Judge's future. It has frightened me before to see just how stupid people can be (and it has changed the way I see most of my students), but one character stood out to me last night. He stood, holding his pants (or package, it's difficult to say which because they were at the same level) and spoke with a drawl spiked with inner-city slang-type inflection.

I have that exact student.

In fact, not only did the character sound like this students, the content was something that the student would say, and has said. Tis frightening really, that with each new film, stand-up routine, music video, or morning radio show, I see the dawn of the Idiocratic Era.

That's Creepy.

I had a student say that pure water tasted like crap.

"How do you know that?" I asked. He was stumped and the class laughed.

I don't mind the occasional butchering of language. As an English teacher, I try to keep in mind that language evolves, and there's not much I can do about it. But I have to wonder how so many think so little about what they say. When profanity becomes the every-word, it doesn't bother me that vocabulary skills are so low or that it can be offensive. It bothers me more that it sounds stupid. So stupid, that I have to take them seriously.

Nobody likes when a person takes everything literally. I say, though, you have to do what you can when a person says, with passion and conviction, that they have put something in their mouth and that something reminded them of feces.

No Internet and Lost Homework

On Monday night, my internet cut out on me. I wish that were the beginnings of an amazing saga that would entertain you to the point of wetting yourself, but not luck. Dry pants for you. It through me off though, and I didn't get to blog yesterday. But it gets me to wondering: why is it that technical support that talks you through every possible trouble-shooting step has such a thick accent? It doesn't bother me so much, the work gets done and nobody gets hurt, but honestly. If companies are saving money by hiring out people from India, wouldn't the phone bill be enough to make that venture not worth it? Maybe the cost of calling people has come way down from where it used to be, but whatever. It still seems like a mighty big hassle.

Yesterday, I called the company to get my internet back up and running. A guy had already been to my house and said that the wireless signal was strong and that I shouldn't have a problem (grr). So I called the company and talked to a nice, script-reading technician named Shawn/Sean. He took me through all the steps that I had done the night before, then told me to take off all the DSL filters from the phone jacks. "Wouldn't that disconnect us?" I asked. He assured me that it would, but, lucky me, I could call them back on my cell phone. Oh joy! Called back on my cell, had to talk to a whole new person who took all my information down again and listened to my sob story that I had told twice before. Long and short of it, they can do nothing for me. Internet is still out, and somebody has to come by today. Stupid.

Speaking of stupid, I tried to find a fold full of student papers this morning. I keep them in a groovy Chuck Norris folder in my room, but when I went to get them, the folder was gone. Bah nuh nuh! I wandered around the room, checked the trash and was convinced that a student had jacked my Norris folder. I swore vengeance with a round house kick to the face. Ten minutes later I remembered that I took the folder home last night and left it in my car. And I brought my wife's car in this morning. Blast. Now I must prepared to round house kick myself to the face. It's gonna hurt, but that's how Chuck would want it.