Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Bring on the spooky

Earlier today I was trying to come up with a blog topic, but I was having trouble. In the midst of my considering different courses of action, my computer in the lab randomly went black. I pressed the monitor button trying to turn it back on but it wouldn't, so I moved up to a different computer, and wrote an entire post about how the movie Osmosis Jones is disgusting. I believed all was well.

Later, a few minutes ago, I happened to log on to my blog to poke around. Much to my confusion, the Osmosis post was nowhere to be found! In its place was the incredibly incomplete blog i tried to post from my first computer, with some new random comments thrown on at the end. When I checked my drafts to find that blog i did post, there was another blog all typed up, about how difficult it is to come up with topics to blog about! I definitely never typed it, as the grammar and spelling was sub-par.

Now, there are several possible explanations for this potentially paranormal activity. First, it's possible someone came into the lab after me and saw my blog opened (my first computer now working again), deciding to commit some good natured cyber-vandalism. I possibly would have done something similar in the same circumstances. But until somebody owns up to messing with it, I'm leaning more towards the second option: ghosts.

In the words of Mel Gibson, "I have long feared that my sins would return to visit me." Just like the patriot, maybe I'm finally being punished for the things I've done. I realize nothing drastic has happened yet, but weird things like this might just be the beginning. Who knows? Next, I might go to sleep and then wake up in a volcano the next morning. Or, I might be walking down the street and trip and fall into a sewer. A sewer of lava. Maybe a little raincloud will start following me everywhere i go, and not just ordinary rain. Lava rain.

Please leave me alone, spirits.

Monday, May 24, 2010

One dozen starving, crazed weasels

Weird Al Yankovic is funny at first, but his annoying voice can really start to wear on you. Some of his parody songs are pretty clever, but most of them lose the novelty after a few listens. Al's magnum opus, however, never gets old.

One of the most brilliant, quirky, unique things to come out of the musical world is Weird Al's eleven minute epic, "Albuquerque". It's a stream of consciousness spoken word narrative over a rambling guitar track, and it gets funnier every time. The ridiculous places he takes you, the ridiculous characters he introduces you to...there's about thirty laugh out loud moments, thirty amused chuckle moments, and five gasp in shock moments.

One time i was feeling a little bit sad, and I was bored, and I needed a good way to kill eleven minutes. So I listened to "Albuquerque". This has happened many times.

Say, that reminds me of another amusing anecdote*. This guy comes up to me on the street and tells me he hasn't had a bite in THREE WHOLE DAYS. Well, I knew what he meant, but just to be funny I took a big bite out of his jugular vein. And he's yellin' and screamin' and bleedin' all over and I'm like, "Hey man, don'tcha get it?"

Man, some people just can't take a joke, ya know?

*amusing anecdote taken word for word from Weird Al

Friday, May 21, 2010

Girls, etc.

In my experience, when girls get together they talk about things that can universally be considered weird. Also, girls tend to be rather insecure. They get these little pages that supposedly are supposed to go in their yearbook, and then they all write long notes to each other affirming their friendship. They try to get as many people as possible to sign their sheet: it's a game and each signature is a point. When someone asks me to sign their sheet, I have to, to avoid appearing a jerk.

I then write an extremely honest, open letter to the person stating exactly what needs to be stated to them.

Another problem is when a guy gets one of them little sheets. They don't need their position in society to be affirmed - half of what people say on them means nothing anyways. I would never get one, because figure if someone wanted to tell me how much they liked me I don't think I should have to force them to. Unfortunately, not many people do that.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

The teacher of my life

Today at the academic assembly, there were a lot of awards given, but one stood above the rest. The award for "teacher of the year" went to Coach Rennie Atkinson, who handles all the A.P. European History classes. Last year, I had the wonderful privilege of taking his class, and it turned out to be the class with the single most effect on my academic career.

When Coach A. gave his short speech, he was brought to tears as he called it "the greatest award of my career." I have never clapped so fervently in my life. A standing ovation and the classic "clap.........clap.......clap.....clap...clap..clap.clapclap" were totally deserved, and I wish there was even more the student body could do to honor him. I'm sure he makes a great football coach, but first and foremost, he is an outstanding teacher. When you are in Coach A's class it's hard to care about any of your others. He is a hilarious man, and he motivates his students to work hard - getting a good score on one of his essays was incredibly satisfying. You wanted to do well because Coach A wanted you to, and if you didn't you knew you were letting him down. Letting Coach A down was something I would not let myself do.

How great the man is can only be understood by taking his class. It was my first AP class, and, thus far, my best. (That is in no way a slight to my other great teachers like Dr. Carreker and Mrs. Taylor!) I don't really have much of a personal relationship with the guy, but I think everyone should know how much of a blessing his class is to FPD. And maybe, just maybe, he'll be shown this blog and know how much his life has affected my life. The award he recieved today only showed the huge amount of people who appreciate him. Coach A, you are a huge part of what makes FPD.

My only regret is I only made a 4 on the exam, not a 5.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

How far is too far?

Have you ever been arguing with someone who is clearly wrong but still refuses to see your point of view? There comes a point when you just have to give up on reason. Sometimes you'll keep arguing and arguing and not get anywhere. and you just have to stop. Your argument has gone too far to continue. Usually when personal insults enter the argument you know you've gone too far.

Alternatively, the question "How far is too far?" can be applied to physical relationships, and that is probably what the average person thinks of when they hear that question. Mr. Veazey says that as long as there is no "nakedness" or "sex", you're probably okay. Also, if you aren't married, you shouldn't live together. Ms. Neufeld takes a similar viewpoint but says that the line is in different places for different people. I think the line is always going to be really blurred no matter what people say. Holding hands is universally considered okay, but further on down the line things get murky.

Just get married: at that point anything and everything will fly.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Dumb

Recently, a fifth grade teacher here at FPD had a baby, so she was out of school for a while. My mom was the person they called to be her long-term substitute. To make a long story short, my mom isn't to up on her grammar rules so she contracted me to help her grade fifth-graders' essays.

What really struck me was the extreme range of writing ability the kids showcased. One kid would have written a pretty good, humorous paper with minimal spelling and structure errors. But then the next kid's paper would be hideously hideous! Improper usage of ques?tion marks run on sentences repeated words words badd speling this sentence is excellent compared to some of the stuff the worst fifth graders put out. I can't understand how teachers can even grade students on the same scale. You can't just fail kids who don't have a basic writing ability, can you? They're fifth graders. If they're failing now is there even hope for the future? I realize that once you get to high school classes diverge and the smart kids take honors and AP stuff, but before that the teachers must have an extremely difficult time keeping the lower kids motivated and not feeling lower. To every elementary school teacher I had, I see now how hard it must have been to put up with know-it-alls and smart-alecks like me.

Monday, May 17, 2010

J. C. Pow

The thing about taking journalism is you have to deal with Mr. Powell. This guy has his pros and cons. First off, he's a big gossiper. He'll always talk about people in the class who aren't there. I can only imagine the mean stuff he's said about me. He's a very casual teacher who jokes with students and texts them on weekends. He always posts amusing in-depth Facebook statuses. I think he uses Facebook to replace how he used to write witty columns in newspapers.

What really makes Mr. Powell's class worth taking, though, is how he really does care about his students, but even more so how he really cares about newspapers and writing. He makes sure the finished product is as good as it can be, and he encourages us when we aren't so sure about the quality of our work. He isn't afraid to cut stories that aren't up to par, like that time I wrote a dull piece on indoor soccer. He's honest, so a compliment from him means a lot. Journalism has become the class I look forward to: it's a laid-back environment, but you do have to do work. But the work is always rewarded. The satisfaction of seeing your writing read by others is rarely topped in this life, and I'd like to thank Mr. Cal for helping me see that.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Zombies and whatnot

Now that I'm done with being in plays and AP classes are over I've found myself with a lot of time on my hands. In looking for something to do, I've finally resorted to playing video games. Last weekend I spent several hours playing Half-Life 2, which I borrowed from a friend. Its generally regarded as one of the best video games of all time. Its not really my style, being a first person shooter and all, but I've been playing it anyways. I thought it was fairly mundane until I got to a certain part in the game. A part involving zombies.

Basically, you find yourself in a deserted town. Deserted, all except for the zombies. Zombies are scary stuff. At one point, I was in the upper floor of a dark house and I decided to go out the window to hang out on the roof. Instantly I heard a crazy bunch of screaming and growling so i turned to my right and there was a ton of zombies bleeding and whacking me. Freaked out, I backed up and fell off the roof. Unfortunately, I was now in the middle of a bunch of zombies. I whipped out my sub-machine gun and randomly started shooting up everything around me. Then, I ran out of bullets so I pulled out my other guns and used all their bullets on the zombies. After a bit of time, I was out of bullets in all my guns - all I had left was a crowbar.

I beat them for several minutes and realized I hate video games.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Bomb squad

Recently, I swung by the local redbox with the intention of renting The Hurt Locker, that movie about a bomb squad in Iraq that won best picture last year. It was pretty good, but for some reason i had a lot of trouble enjoying it.

The truth is, expectations can kill a movie, or a book or a song for that matter. My favorite movie of last year was Up, but I also loved Avatar. Both were beaten out in the Best Picture category, so I was expecting a movie even more amazing than those (District 9, also nominated, was boring and tedious and mostly just the f-word.) Simply put, The Hurt Locker never sucked me in. The whole time I was waiting for it to get good, to wow me. I never once forgot i was watching a movie.

Because of the hype and the critics, I lost much of the experience I could've had. I wanted to like it, but because of the wall i built up and the bar i expected it to meet, I couldn't. To contrast, I enjoyed The Book of Eli immensely, but would not say it was a better movie - i wasn't expecting anything great so i was free to sit back and enjoy. Its almost as if how much i enjoy a movie is determined by how good it actually is minus my expectations.