Cheeters

To anyone who cheated at trivia bowl (yeah we know you are) last night... you suck. Because that just isn't the point of the game.

To anyone planning to play on election day... yeah... I think the odds are stacked a bit. Cause I know all the elections Eugene V. Debs ran in... and when Alf Landon ran, AND I know who shot Bobby Kennedy and George Wallace.

Kate

P.S. How many movies was Matt Damon in before Good Will Hunting?

I think so, Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants our size?

One of the more curious things today was finding that someone from THE WORLD BANK looked up my blog. This was curious as I don't have ANY OPINION about THE WORLD BANK. I SWEAR. I don't even vote.

Anyway this was curious until I looked to see why this person was looking at my blog. Apparently if you look up "leather pants" on the Blogger search you get my site.

So... someone from THE WORLD BANK was looking up LEATHER PANTS. And lingered.

A student of mine told me today "Everything is boring, Miss." I suggested he make a hobby of picking his nose or he's going to live a boring life. I hope I don't get sued for his new bloody noses.

I also have two Alis that just joined Model UN. One a freshman that knows too much about NGOs, WHO, WB, and WTO, WWF, and The Who. Good thing he doesn't have veto rights.

And now for trivia night with the boy I'm not allowed to be partners with.

NaNoWriMo II

Today is October 29th. NaNoWriMo starts on Wednesday.
I've decided to change the rules for myself a little, and given it is a self imposed discipline I get to change the rules.

NaNoWriMo will be NaNoWri2Mo. I already know I won't have time in November to write much. There is too much going on. Too much I say.

I've got grad school (Which interestingly enough this project hasn't turned out to be as time consuming as I thought. I wasn't able to start my project that is due Monday until Friday night (my hockey game was cancelled), my friend in the class called me in a panic that she hadbeen working with all her co-workers on it for the last two weeks and it still didn't make sense to her... I had two days and no library friends... but I'm almost done... unless I missed something REALLY big, which is possible considering the notes are all over the place).

I've got classes to teach (and simulations to write) including the famed stock market game which involves WAY too much math for a poor history teacher to do without access to a class set of calculators. "What do you mean times and add, Miss?"

I've got Model UN which is back after a long hiatus (for Ramadan believe it or not) and senior high Sunday School. Thanksgiving when everyone is coming to town (including Granddaddy for a whole week)...

Renaissance Festival, school plays, new ministers (yeah that actually will make me busier for awhile). U.S. History teacher meetings.

So while November isn't as busy as October, don't expect a novel to be written too. I get December too...

Mock Chaos II

Mock Congress has come, and in most classes gone. We came out of our caucuses and our committees to our floor debates. None of the representatives was particularly interested in debating nor were their compatriots interested in what exactly "hunting within city limits" or "more money for poor schools" meant. Or maybe that was all part of the spin.

In the end though, dispite debating skills not really being practiced (if they exist at all) we were sucessful. The majority party won, most of the time... except when Congress was perfectly divided and then they got mad at me for allowing one student to go to the blood drive. The majority leader bossed people around.

Anyway it is over, and it was fun... it took me an hour and a half to write and it took three days in class to finish. Except for the grading I like those payoffs.

Mock Chaos

Those fans that followed me from xanga know that I *try* to run a Model UN program at my school. Running extra curricular programs at my school is a little like well, herding cats. I've herded cats before - and I've been a cat.

We had to go on hiatus because half my club couldn't be there during Ramadan. Half the interested students can't be there because they have to take the bus to get home. Anyway...

So the solution... do it in class. It will fit. Teach parliamentary proceedures in government class and trade-offs and costs in economics. Run a few practices, assign the paper - and voila, Model UN.

So then then I have to teach parliamentary proceedures to high school students who have the attention spans of oh look a birdie. There also was some cool party on Saturday that "you should have been at Miss." It is the quince where the kids were shot I'll say "no thanks" and if it wasn't I'll say "no thanks" and really prefer that they didn't tell me which bars sold to minors and tell me that DJ Screw dying of a codine/alcohol overdose is "ironic." Anyone out there think it is OK to tell a teacher that?

Anyway... I'm running a mock Congress. I wrote it, which means I already want to fix it... but I've cast my representatives with only stereotypical information about their city/state. I told them things like people from Buffalo want money for snow plows and San Francisco would be interested in earthquake prevention (which they seemed to think was possible). I told them ALL the cities in the US will want their own "Big Dig..." it is a great idea. Then they have to get their parties platform to match. Then they have to get money from special interests. The American Dairy Council, the NRA, MADD, ACLU, or the AARP. Then they have to get reelected... you know after they have to raise taxes to pay for all the pork.

I can't tell if they are interested or if the whole thing is simply simply chaos. I mean, it is Congress right - they have to run around and get support and get the class to vote for all their bills and... well... How could I tell? And why can't that kid write legibly?????? Punk.

I need to bring my meat tenderizing gavel.

Is there a lawyer store somewhere or something?

NaNoWriMo

So I'm thinking of writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month. I've got a couple of ideas:

1) Catcher in the T-shacks
2) It Takes a Village of Crackpots
3) How to solve the problems of poverty in 3EZ steps!

They are each variations on the same theme.

See, I just don't have that much to do in November so I figure 50,000 words - what the heck?!!?! EZ!

That was sarcasm. But you knew that.

How to find white trash...

This is a statistic I'd like to know so I won't raise my children in this city:

Eternal Image, maker of customized urns and caskets is entering a new market. You can now be eternally kept in an urn in the colors of your favorite baseball team.

Now which team would sell the greatest number of urns?

Mistakes and blessings...

Things you shouldn't do:
drink a bottle of wine on a school night.

Things you should be happy for:
NO MEETING TOMORROW!@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:-)


SWEET.

DO A DRUNKEN DANCE


.l,/l/,/,

Thanx

An exercise in creativity... be a spin doctor

Republican Congressman Mark Foley has resigned amid accusations that he sent inappropriate electronic messages to minors that worked in Congress. House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert has been accused of covering up the Mark Foley scandal. Democrats have demanded that he resign and questioned his morality.
REPUBLICAN SPIN:

There have been more American deaths in the last month than any other month in Iraq.
REPUBLICAN SPIN:

The War in Iraq began in March of 2003 because it was believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. No weapons have been found.
REPUBLICAN SPIN:

Gas prices have fallen in each of the last fifteen weeks.
HOW COULD REPUBLICANS TAKE CREDIT?

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has been using campaign donations instead of his personal money to pay Christmas bonuses for the support staff at the Ritz-Carlton where he lives in an upscale condominium. Federal election law bars candidates from converting political donations for personal use.
DEMOCRAT SPIN:

Republican leaders (including Tom Delay of Sugarland) have been accused of taking bribes in exchange for voting for certain bills.
REPUBLICAN SPIN:

Despite five years passing since the September 11^th attacks, Osama bin Laden has not been caught and terrorist plots continue.
REPUBLICAN SPIN:

Database

My life has turned into a database.

#1 Reason to vote for Chris Bell

“‘Poli’ means more than one. ‘Ticks’ are bloodsucking parasites.”
-Kinky Friedman

The Bridge on the River Kwai

I was walking down the hallway today, taking my long trek from the copy room out to my little shack (approx one mile) and I was feeling a little, um... weird.

One of the things I've noticed about teaching is that so much of your work is in isolation. Duh. You are supposed to spend the majority of your working life with teenagers. You are funny. No one really appreciates how funny you are. Sometimes they get it, and then you can be proud (they did get it when I wrote "mental incontinence" on the board as a disqualification for voting). Some handle this by losing their sense of humor, some handle it by bringing their humor down to their level. I am not that low, I think knock knock jokes are lame at any age past six. Puns are the game, but those limited English kids don't really "get" puns all the time.

So if people aren't going to laugh with me... then I'll have to amuse myself.

Disclaimer: I fully recognize that my behavior, when perpetuated for long enough will gain me free admission to a nut house. Wait... hmmm...

I like sound effects. I can draw funny elephants on the board. I've taken to calling everyone that tries to tell me what to do "the man" and for that matter anyone in history that was well... on top. I practice funny walks sometimes when the kids are working quietly on their (gasp) worksheets. I yell at the stapler and the attendance program (which was designed by Satan). All in an attempt to well... cope.

Now some of you know I like to teach in metaphors. Imperialism is like the War in Iraq. Well not like... that would be a simile. Imperialism is the War in Iraq. Or do I have that backwards. Monopolies are like Ticketmaster. Immigration policy now is like it was 100 years ago... The Spanish-American War was a lot like a misunderstood cat-fight over the the attractive on the outside Cuba. The Civil War was a misfired divorce when the bride was forced to go back to her husband and make nice...

And sometimes I have metaphors for my own life. Today I was walking back from the copy room on the way out to my shack. The march is about one mile and there is a reason I've lost weight as I've labored in this jungle.

I started to whistle. I started to whistle the Colonel Bogey March. Din din. Din. Din. Din dindin din. Din din din... and that's when it hit me. I'm building a bridge over the River Kwai. The officers aren't working and the POWs don't care. Actually, they might be out to sabotage the whole thing (go figure). In that respect the plans are well... poorly thought out. I'm building a bridge over the River Kwai. When we realize the first plan is faulty, we scrap it all and build another bridge exactly like it 100 feet away. And when it is built... well... you know what happens. The comander gets in a gunfight, gets shot and accidently hits the plunger wired to the bridge, blows the whole thing up and sends the train into the river. A lesson in futility, "Madness!!! Madness!!!" I say.

The more I think about it, the more the metaphor works. Din din. Din. Din. Din dindin din. Din din din... is it me that's wrong in the head or... something else?

My question to those more well versed in insanity than I... should I see a head doc?

In other news: Magic Shell (R) might possibly be my new favorite substance.

The Crew

Tonight I had the pleasure of hosting a corps of complete strangers. Except for one, but they didn't know how in the world they had secured an invitation to eat scrumptious chili and state-famous Blue Bell ice cream. So the question was, "how did you meet?" My answer, "we met one night on the boardwalk and it was true..." then Dorothy cut me off. We were left with not much than "we were friends of friends who became friends in the midst of well, a year of - for lack of a better word - drama. Then we led a Bible study together. Heh, we led Mark Study together. You know how it is difficult to quantify a friendship?

Six years later (including two year sabbatical when we were going through hellish years in different cities) we can fall back into a friendship, if only for a few hours among complete strangers. I'm holding her books for ransom so she'll have to come visit me in April (after her adventures).

I'm feeling relatively melodramatic these days. There aren't many friendships I've had that have lasted that long (or with the break) - and the half dozen or so that have... well... I love you all.

Peace.

Caught in the stacks

Well I spent much of the last two days working on "IOP Draft Two" also known as the beer database. It was due about sixteen minutes ago. At this point it is eighteen pages long. I fully expect it to be over thirty pages long by the time it is finished. Ah whatever...

My desk is stacked with my books, articles, and intructions not to mention the objects that have been profiled. So on my 2' x 5' desk there are a half a dozen books and a dozen bottles of beer. Yeah, it sure looks like I wrote an eighteen page technical manual today.

On a side note, isn't it the Democrats that should be under such moral scrutiny? Wonder what will happen if the Dems take the house.

Trends

If you've paid attention much in the last ten years you might have noticed there are some reoccuring themes in my life. They tend to come up every six months or so, others only resurface once every two years or so. Still they resurface and resurface and resurface. A lot of the time I just push them back under the rug. You know, a healthy reaction... :-)

One of these reoccuring themes came up again this weekend, the wise B.S. King pointed it out: "It sounds like you aren't really sure where you are going again." Heh, yeah. Ha, every six months or so I rewrite my game plan. Sometimes it is because I hear my call loud and clear (yikes! I think God is talking to me again) and sometimes it is just because I get bored. In this case it might be a little from both columns, but I'm starting to feel things get mixed up again. And stir and stir and stir. Gulp, I was just getting comfortable (and bored).

So if you don't mind prayin' for someone (who you might not even know) I think I'm in for another season of change.

I think I want to throw up.

What happened to...

So what happened to all those feel-good stories I used to hear? You know, the ones about what Princess Di was wearing that day, about the boy mowing all the major league baseball fields? Or hell I'll even take the fluff pieces about how to get out of a locked phone booth full of killer bees.

Why are they reporting on the real news, surely it isn't because Americans are all the sudden interested in the rest of the world.

The 13th Inning

Oy, you really do get your money's worth when you watch the Astros... two games for the price of one.

Ramadan

Somehow, perhaps because Ramadan moves around and I've gotten to be more effiecient at teaching (now I actually get to Watergate instead of just Pearl Harbor... this year I'll get to September 11th if it all works out) I seem to teach The Age of Reform during Ramadan.

This is perhaps one of my favorite things to do because I get to read this:

"All day long the blazing midsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of abominations: upon tens of thousands of cattle crowded into pens whose wooden floors stank and steamed contagion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn railroad tracks and huge blocks of dingy meat factories, whose labyrinthine passages defied a breath of fresh air to penetrate them; and there are not merely rivers of hot blood and carloads of moist flesh, and rendering-vats and soup cauldrons, glue-factories and fertilizer tanks, that smelt like the craters of hell-there are also tons of garbage festering in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the workers hung out to dry and dining rooms littered with food black with flies, and toilet rooms that are open sewers."
-Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

To a room full of Muslim students.
Then I get to inform them that their cereal has x numbers of fly legs (or is likely to), and that their pasta has x grams of feces.

Consider it my act of understanding their faith, and helping this whole fasting thing.

Move-in Hairstylist

Every three months or so I get my haircut. I like Lisa. She has a few legs up over every other person that has ever cut my hair:

1) She speaks fluent English.
2) She listens to talk radio.
3) She reads books (in English).
4) I've known her for, well since 1993.
5) She doesn't ask me if my boyfriend is cute.

Now I like Lisa becuase she knows I don't like big hair. I'm an atypical Texas girl I guess, so she blow dries it and straightens it. Once every twelve weeks. I generally get compliments (though it makes me look less like Mary Louise Parker or Alicia Hammon (whoever that is) so I might keep it.

Problem: I'm not ambidextrious enough to brush my hair, much less blow dry it, and much less straighten it in any uniform way.

Solution: Sam can do it, as repayment for that loan I give him every month.

The Rocket

Tonight I'm going to watch Clemens pitch his last game ever. Or his last home game ever. Or his last regular season home game ever. Or his last home game of the season.

That's the problem with lasts, you never really know when they are happening.

So tonight I'm going to an Astros game. Roger will be pitching...

The Beer Institute

Sam and I went to the SPEC's today to buy beer for my library project. I'm building a beer database :-) As it turns out I spent more money on the beer for the project than on the textbook and all the software. Hmmmm... now that is what you call hidden fees. Do you think I can write that off on my taxes as part of tuition? I claimed happy hour on my taxes last year as an expense for work and they didn't say anything.

The difference between FOX and NPR

FOX: "Find out why UFOs are causing problems for the space shuttle!"

NPR: "Astronauts are invesatgating if a mystery object caused some damage to the heat shield, the first inspections showed no damage, but they will use a second test just to be safe."

September 19

Yar! Today be squalk like a pirate day. 'Tis a good day indeed; spent it with me class of real pirates, me precious felons and wenches. The crew pilfered ye ol' butcher paper to study the lives of 'em land lubbers. 'For this though we squander our hours in the council of the ship blubbering over the problems of the sea. The council then voted to be forcin' the master of the high seas to the plank. Say you shall there be but a score and seven hours in a day? Yar, there be not for this foolishness that be makin' us to the chokey and be askin' us to turn lead into gold? Be ye as crazy as a salted herring and be damned for the contempt. Davey Jones be decidin' your wretched fate. Gar!

Kentucky Fried Chicken v. KFC

Today Sam and I went to KFC after church. I ate a Dreamscicle. It was like my wedding day or something.

On our way home Sam informed me that Kentucky Fried Chicken had changed its name for one of two reasons, one of which was plausable:

1) The "chicken" there could not be called chicken so they changed their name to KFC.

2) One of Sander's credos for his company was that no one could walk into a Kentucky Fried Chicken and be turned away for lack of money. So the company changed its name so no one could ever walk into a Kentuck Fried Chicken again.

In case you were wondering Sanders sold Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1964. He died in 1980.

This launched a search of the Internet and UNT databases (for the true reason for the change, which appears to have occured in 1991) my only reliable source for researching anything about KFC from my couch.

FACT: LexisNexis seems to only go back to 1992 on the subject.

FACT: The Houston Chronicle didn't deem the name change noteworthy.

FACT: PETA (led by Pamela Anderson) began claiming in 2000 that KFC chicken was genetically modified "monster chicken." They asked the Kentucky governor to remove the statue of Colonel Sanders from the capitol building.

FACT: In the early 1990s Americans went on a "health kick" and started avoiding "fried foods."

RUMOR: The Commonwelath of Kentucky trademarked the word "Kentucky" and asked that all companies using the name pay the state fees if the word is used in a song or on a product.

RUMOR: KFC was thinking of expanding its menu outside of fried chicken, so they wanted the flexibility. This never happened.

FACT: In the early 1990s other companies shortened their name: International House of Pancakes became IHOP, Howard Johnson's became HoJos.

FACT: Americans now don't mind fried foods, it is the carbs we are worried about. So KFCs remodeled stores are going back to the old name.

FACT: KFC doesn't give you real honey. They give you honey sauce made with: HFCS, corn syrup, sugar, honey, and carmel color.

FACT: It is still tasty chicken.

The ALF-CIO

In case you were wondering who to vote for the AFL-CIO has mailed me a list. It begins with the following,

Dear Union Member,
This November 7, 2006, Union members and their families will have the opportunity to vote for candidates who are FRIENDS of labor and who support our issues...

Early voting begins October 23rd folks and the AFL is endorsing, DEMOCRATS!
Babs Radnofsky, Chris Bell (not Kinky), Al Green, Sheila, Nick Lampson (not the write in Republicans)... sure there are a few Republicans... wait no there aren't.

One Democrat though is notably left off. U.S. Representative, District 7 candidate - Jim Henley. Now Mr. Jim gets no support from the Democratic party, perhaps because he is running against John Culberson (R) who has been the Congressman from these parts since well... Phil Archer retired. Also a Republican. Lets put it this way, if a Democrat takes District Seven (lifetime educator or not) it is a sure sign that the Republican incumbant probably embezzled $1.3 billion from the protection of baby seals in Alaska. I'm pretty sure a dead Republican would win over a Democrat in these here parts.

That aside, the true mystery is - WHY DID THE UNION BOTHER TO SEND ME TWO ($.88+paper) NOTICES telling me that I should vote Democrat? Do they think I'm a dummy? As though I thought - hmmm... maybe this year the AFL-CIO is backing PERRY? Ha.

Let's just stick with the status quo and save a little in postage how about?

And, Dad, in case you are reading this: I'm not in a union of any sort - they just keep sending me this mail. They must have me confused with someone else...

R.I.P. Ann Richards

In honor of the original "Tough Texas Grandma"

“How to Be a Good Republican: 1. You have to believe that the nation's current 8-year prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but yesterday's gasoline prices are all Clinton's fault. 2. You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own. 3. You have to be against all government programs, but expect Social Security checks on time.”

“I believe in recovery, and I believe that as a role model I have the responsibility to let young people know that you can make a mistake and come back from it.”

"I am delighted to be here with you this evening because after listening to George Bush all these
years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like."

“Teaching was the hardest work I had ever done, and it remains the hardest work I have done to date.”

“Poor George [Bush], he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

Roomates

Fact: I haven't seen my brother in five days.
Fact: He lives with me.
Fact: I've been working crossword puzzles and making a beer database.
Fact: I need him to help me with crossword puzzles and beer data.
Fact: I miss my him.

Us and Them

On the eve of September 11th I'd like to take a minute to reflect, not on the firemen, the businessmen and those that died, though I'll certainly take a moment to remember them but on the freedoms that may very well be on life support.

I've said this before. I'm sorry for the redundancy. If any of my readers out there are interested in making a film... well we need a remake of 1984. Or something.

Freedoms guarenteed by the Bill of Rights:
Religion
Speech
Press
Assembly
Petition
To bear arms
To not be forced to quarter soldiers
No unreasonable search and seizure
No being held without being accused
No double jeopardy
Cannot be compelled to testify against oneself
No seizure of private property without just compensation
The right to a speedy, public, and fair trial
The right to approach the accuser
The right to an attorney
The right to a trial by jury
No cruel and unusual punishment

Seventeen basic rights, nine of which have in some way been tested as a result of the 9-11 attacks and the "war on terror" that followed. While some are screaming that these freedoms must be protected foremost others are calling for increased security, perfectly willing to surrender basic freedoms in the name of additional safety.

We harken back to the days of the Alien and Sedition Acts; the suspension of habeus corpus during the Civil War; the Espionage and Sedition Acts; the days of Japanese detention centers; the Red Scare; the McCarthy Era. And I am forced to ask, did we ever really have those freedoms - or do we have them when it is convienent.

I for one would prefer history not to repeat itself.

I've also heard a lot about "they" lately. "They" might be anyone really: Arabs, Muslims, Hispanics, Gen Xers, and New Orleans transplants. I've been told Hispanics don't work, Muslims hate us, Arabs want to kill us, Gen Xers can't read, and Katrina kids are all hoodlems. I'm not going to end stereotypes tonight but I'd like to acknowledge that there are many exceptions to the "rules" so many that I can't see that there are rules.

At any rate stop pretending we're perfect.

Purple Hairy Monkey Butt

Remember the game of telephone? We whispered a phrase into our friend's ear but as the message was passed it was increasingly distorted. Well, I think I've found it again in secondary education.

I have this activity that I like to do. Teach the kids sequencing and logic... they start out with a timeline of inventions and then are asked a series of questions, easy questions mind you:

Why are there no photographs of George Washington? (The camera was invented 15 years after Washington died).

Which was invented first the escalator or the elevator? (Otis invented the elevator first).

You learn interesting things, like we had traffic signals before we had light bulbs OR cars and that karl Benz (as in Mercedes-Benz) actually invented the first practical automobile, not the tycoon from Detroit.

But here is the thing, when you cheat the teacher knows it. Some answers were written in the wrong blanks true... so...

Q: What is a telegraph?
A: Alfred Nobel

Q: If you lived in a small town in Colorado in 1880 how would you get a bicycle?
A: The Wright Brothers

Two thirds of the class said people started moving to Houston in 1900 because of the prostitutes and factories.

But they also copied from a kid with bad handwriting so:

Q: How did they open tin cans during the Civil War.
A1: With knifes.
A2: With a knifes or shoot them.
A3: Short them or with knife.
A4: Short them.

Q: If you lived in 1900 what would you do for fun?
A1: baseball
A2: freeze tag
A3: pretzels

and finally:

Q: If you lived in 1850 how would you close your raincoat?
A1: buttons
A2: butter

Oh my gawd Becky...

Because my previous posts have led to e-mails, comments, and even phone calls regarding my grammar and my use of homophones I've not wanted to post recently. Or maybe it is the whole going back to work, getting sick, and then starting grad school simultaneously that has led to my laziness (and lack of real-life incidents to write about).

I do feel compelled to share one particular observation I made this weekend.

This weekend wasn't really a weekend. To observers on the outside (my coworkers) they probably could conclude that I cut class on Friday to enjoy a FOUR day weekend. That would have been nice, and admittedly I've done it before (see trips to San Francisco and New Orleans) but calling for a sub this weekend did not involve peninsular cities. This weekend involved 30 hours of lectures on information organization, or as it has been renamed so my salary can double "metadata." I know, I know you are jealous, you are thinking WOW cataloging and databases how interesting! In truth there is more to it than that (i.e. the problem solving) but that is not what this little blog is about.

This blog is about classmates. Now I've sat through some classes with some interesting classmates. From high school the one that most stands out in my mind was Ben, who slept in the aisle beside me in Calculus class. No harm no foul. There were annoying characters in high school, but it seems I dodged a bullet. In college it was Sharon, who seemed to pick her history classes based on the ones I had registered for. Sharon was a dull girl, she didn't change her homemade clothes often and had the annoying habit of wanting to be smart but also not really listening. Her hair was greasy. Which meant she asked a lot of questions that had already been answered five minutes before. Again, for the most part I dodged the bullet.

Grad school though is a different story. My classes now encompass a much larger demographic, to the degree that the Gen Xers and the Baby Boomers almost got in a fight when a Baby Boomer said "Gen Xers don't read, do we really want to develop all this technology to serve them when the solution should really just be to get them to read; aren't we just feeding their ignorance." There were two older ladies in the class that seemed to have an ~irrelevant~ comment about metadata in the corporate world, and had parallels to everything we were talking about on some database (that this audience of librarians already knows about).

On the back row the bad kids started races to see who would make the most extraneous comments, Jewel won.

Jewel though was not my problem, in fact my problem didn't hit me until Saturday. Becky (we'll use another pseudonym here) was most certainly the star student. Her hair was in a perfect I'm-a-serious-student-so-while-my-hair-is-perfectly-styled-it-looks-like-I-didn't-put-any-effort-into-it ponytail. She carried a 64 ounce bottle of water to class every day. She drank the coffee provided AFTER spending five minutes balancing out the flavor with cream, sugar, and hot water - sampling each sip and adjusting according to her refined palate. By today I realized that she was arriving an hour early for each class to set up the contents of the rollerboard suitcase in and around her desk.

Apparently Friday she was lost, but as time went on she began to catch on to the schemes being presented. As Dr. E carried on his lectures and his explaination of our project there becan to be a soft echo across the room "ohhhhhh..." and "yes, yes, yes..."

While transcribed it sounds like it might have been an orgasm, it wasn't. It was much more akin to her being in church, propped up with four color-coded highlighters for for her notes; two binders (for the lecture notes and the project discriptions). Her "ohhhhhs" and "yes" very well could have graduated into an "Amen, Dr. E., amen!" Keep in mind this is all about classification, cataloging, and information systems...

That would be why I don't work in private schools, I feel like there would be a much higher chance of me being fired for calling some poor girl "an annoying little tart."

As it stands now I'm not sure they would know it was an insult.

In truth there was a lot of cataloging going on in the class. The back row (where I was dutifully sitting) took not only a catalog of her outbursts bust also broke them down into "questions" "fake questions" "ohhhhs" and "yeses" 257 in total over the course of three days. We also worked on crossword puzzles and sudoku.

Now those are my kind of students.