This is a type of educator I won't be.

If you are going to teach controversial content, be prepared for varying opinions and views.

I'm taking "African-American Literature". I really didn't want to, but it's a requirement, so here I am. We've covered several decent poems so far and I've really kind of enjoyed a few of them. When we hit a poem on abortion and the one adult learner had a bitch fit about it, I pretty much tuned the rest of the class out.
I'm all for civilized debate, but when your only argument is "YOU DIDN'T LIVE THROUGH THE 80S YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND I'M A PROUD CHRISTIAN MOTHER WITH FIVE CHILDREN YOU CAN NEVER UNDERSTAND" I'm just nodding at you to be polite as I boot my laptop up and go back to shamelessly writing in the middle of class.
Yesterday, my professor preempts class with "This classroom is a safe space and everyone's opinion is valid here."

Yeah, not for long.

The poem in question was Gwendolyn Brook's "A Song in the Front Yard"

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.

I want a peek at the back

Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.   

A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now   

And maybe down the alley,

To where the charity children play.   

I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.

They have some wonderful fun.

My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine

How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.   

My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae   

Will grow up to be a bad woman.

That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late

(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.

And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,

And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace   

And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

Now, when I read it, my first impression was of a sheltered girl wanting to be "free", like the "charity children." It's a very surface reading. As I thought about it further, I wrestled with the possibility of the speaker being white. The year was 1945, racial tensions were at an all time high, so why not? Madame Brooks could very easily have been trying to twist a common theme of wanting what others have. It *can* work.

Polarizing the poem a bit; A "good" girl wants to be a "bad woman". White and black. Roses, upper class, a well groomed, maintained, front yard, a sheltered life.. good, white. An overgrown backyard, charity children, criminals.. bad, black.

That's just my reading of it. You can read it multiple ways, of course. Take this paper, written by scholars at Georgia State:

The separation of the backyard from the front yard also hints at institutionalized racial
separation appropriate to the time period: the requirement that Blacks enter and be
serviced through the back door of establishments persisted into the early 1960s
(Wiese 204). Note that the narrator feels that she has more in common with the
“hungry weeds” than with the “roses” in the front yard that she is “sick of.” The
roses can be understood as a metaphor for White society. The culmination of
these preceding issues of race and class serve as a larger metaphor for the
experience of preliminary methods of integration in which one or two blacks are
enrolled in all-white schools as human “guinea pigs.”

Now, while this person is arguing that the speaker is a black woman "homesick" for her race, it can also work for my argument as well - black people in that time period entered through the back yard, and the rose can symbolize white society...OR it just looks like fun to be free of the confomalities of her prim and proper upbringing and race doesn't have to have anything to do with it. Read it however YOU want, because as long as you can back it up, your point can be considered valid. This is a crappy blog, I didn't go into hardcore research mode, but I'm sure I can find people to support my opinion, and at least three different opinions. Welcome to being an English major!

But, instead of trying to listen to the idea, my professor has a meltdown. She begins demanding where in the poem you see the word "race", "black", or "white". As more students try to voice their opinion, she slams her book into the desk, and sternly concludes that class is over, singling out the most vocal students to stay after class to talk to her.

You know, I'm really fucking glad that this is the person grading my exams. My reading is just as valid as hers, and as my classmates. These classes are all about interpretation and apparently the only correct one is my professors.

I'm seriously considering going to the head of the English department if this keeps up. I'm not sacrificing my grade because my professor is unable to see opinions that aren't hers.  I'm also half considering writing an email to my professor asking for an explanation why my opinion is invalid, and with proof, of course. Unless she's proficient in necromancy and can raise the old gal's bones to speak to me, Gwendolyn Brooks has passed and whatever her thoughts were when she was writing has gone with her.

If I ever make it to the published author thing, I'm going to leave a note for all my readers - "Enjoy my stories for what you get out of it." I've had several conversations with my friend Walter where I've sent him snips of my work, and him of his, and we come up with different views about things the other wrote, and then we agree!

There are days I seriously consider my choice to go to collage as the wrong one.

These words of wisdom remind me of my dad.

When all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.

...mostly because when encountering technology of any time, I think my dad's only reaction to any problem he would have would just be to hit it until it works. Maybe while calling for me. Maybe not.


He's the only man I know who can start up mapquest and end up getting directions around England.

I need this.

Spring 2012 Rundown

...annnnnd we're back!


My next semester has begun, but that's not why I haven't updated in a while. I'm just a lazy bitch.

Onwards!

This semester is going to be a pain in the ass only because I decided to have all my classes on two days, so I get an amazing amount of work to do all at once.

"Literacy Development" is my first actual teaching class. Did I get into the program? No. Will I? Eventually. Does any of this matter? No. I'm taking the class and whoever doesn't like it can take their opinions and shove it. So far, it's an interesting class  with an interesting professor. She makes us talk to *everyone* which kind of sucks because I really don't enjoy talking to my classmates normally. It's not bad, workload wise, though this does remind me I have to go post on the stupid blog for homework.

On a side note, "class blogs" are ridiculous and set up in a really crummy way. Nobody is going to read through 30+ blog entries. Perhaps setting up a forum-type environment would be better.


"African American Poetry" makes me miserable. I'm all for poetry, what I'm not for is rap being lumped in with poetry. We value these pieces of literature for the content and message they've carried through the years, even if it's the same message a few zillion times. Rap does not seem to convey any message other than who I fucked, where I fucked them, how much money I pretend I have, and how much of a "gangster" I think I am. Yeah, that's so bloody fucking important I can find the same shit on twitter.


"Literature and Movies from Non-West cultures: Crime and Catharsis" so far is interesting. The book we started is quite entertaining and I'm enjoying going though it, so that's nice. The professor is a little bit of a scatterbrain...

..erm, a lot a bit of a scatterbrain, so listening to her lecture is hard to follow. One minute were comparing "chi" to "karma", the next were drawing diagrams of her shooting fireballs and I really have no idea how we made that jump. I have nicknamed this woman Stormageddon, Dark Lord of Nonsense. Also, we don't have desks in this room, so taking notes is a pain in the ass as well.

The "friend" I have in the class also likes to lean over and read and comment on my notes. I may have to stab her with a pen. My handwriting is pretty close to Egyptian hieroglyphics at this point since I do more typing than anything else now, please take your own notes and stop asking me to write neater BECAUSE ITS MY DAMN NOTES.

and finally, a good ol' Shakespeare class. For my final project, I have to perform a 20+ line soliloquy. Were doing his historic plays and comidies, so if I don't do Richard III's opening (because he is a magnificent bastard), I'll do something from Much Ado About Nothing so I can copy some amazing work done by the DoctorDonna. 

It's a nice little schedule and so far the workload hasn't been too terrible. Poetry I kind of read on the fly, and I'm going to find a way to get the tome of a textbook on my kindle if it kills me because it's beginning to kill my back. Shakespeare gets a lot of talk-to-myself time, which keeps people away from me in the lounge, and the other two are at least entertaining enough to keep going.

In other news, I watched the Puppy Bowl. It was cute.

Happy Tennant is Happy.

I really like this .gif.


That's all.

Edit: Post 450! 

A friend to all.

I really like the fuzzy animal types, aside from 'prolly being allergic to most of them. My family even owns one of the stupidest, smartest mutts in existence. He's got all of three IQ points, one of which is labeled "food", the other two are "LOVEME" and "LOVEMELOVEME".

Yeah, hes really that stupid. He's also pretty bright. I can let him follow me to the car and back off his leash and he might go pee on our bushes, but he won't run away. He's really a smart mutt, somehow, but his "food" and "love me" traits just take over more often than not.

I am trapped, kind of literally until NYS Unemployment decides to start issuing me my check again, in my house at least til school starts up again with not much to do, and I do like taking walks...

Someone decided that the storm this morning was just wayyyy too much for him. Big mutt, barks at everything that moves past the house, whines at my door when the rain comes. I open the door, offer to let him out back, he comes willingly until he actually sees that it's raining. I wouldn't go potty in the rain either. So, and I'm sure I'll get hell for this later, me and mutt went back to bed to laze around for a while. He's kind of cute in a big, smelly, stupid dog way,

I figured, what the hell, we'll try the walking thing you big stupid mutt. I've got nothing better to do than to teach you how to walk on a leash without ripping my arm off. There's also ham and milkbones in the house.

Armed with a bag of ham, swiss, and milkbones, we made a really difficult lap around the block, but then he realized that... holy shit, she's holding ham! And not eating it! Is it my ham?

Laps two and three went much better. I even let him hang out with the fire hydrant, because, well, he is a dog.

He was really happy to get his ham too.

Yeah, I was holding ham in that direction.

Well, it's a start, I guess. I need something to get me out of the house every now and then or I'll go stir crazy, and since I lack money to put gas in my car, this will do.

I promise, no more dog posts. I'm just really bored right now, and I can't seem to get anything creative on paper.

Bringing in the New Year in... Canada?

I preempt this entry with the fact that yes, I am dating again.

Two people.

Yes.
A guy, and a girl.

Alright, so, that's been cleared up. My boyfriend invited me and my girlfriend to celebrate the new years in Canada, so, we book nine hour train tickets and off we went to the frozen north for new years. I now need to take Naja and forcefully beat into my girlfriend's parents head that us driving will be better next time, only to save us in sanity.

Upon arrival in the cold north, and kidnapping by our boyfriend, our car breaks down thirty seconds over the boarder. Oops.

We arrive at his room several hours later, and exchange late Christmas gifts. I was greeted with a Zelda boss-key box.

Do you know how excited that made me? It's a Zelda boss key box. Holy balls I didn't care if it was just the box.

But no, it got better. Inside was an awesome collection of Zelda themed goodies. I got my very own Zelda-themed beer stein, Zelda bead goodies (Including a boss key!), a Zelda decal, a green Zelda hoodie and gloves...

AND THE FUCKING SPIRITUAL STONES, BISH.

Oh yeah. Who's the hero of time, now, huh?!

I also got the most amazing tea, I'm actually drinking some now. It's making my whole room smell of earl gray and I'm so freaking happy.

Oh, and I got a Blissey for my head.

We had originally planned on hitting up Niagara Falls for the New Years celebration, but I'm dating almost clones of myself. I don't want to be in a crowd, and neither do they. We instead visited another friend of ours where we were questioned mercilessly for being American, and got really drunk.

Actually, that was kind of a trend all weekend.

We did get to go see the falls later on though. We went a little late, since we were usually up til 3-4am drinking, and that takes a lot of sleep to be significantly not hung over the next morning.

We checked out the falls from a huge ass ferris wheel. Gotta do these things in style, you know.


Like normal date-types, we decided to see a movie as well on our little vacation. Being three giant manchildren, we decided on The Adventures of Tintin, which was surprisingly fantastic! I was really worried about it taking a nosedive into the uncanny valley from the trailers I had seen, but it did a great job of being so real, at times I doubted its animated qualities, but still retaining the beautiful, comic-esque details of an animated film. It was wrapped up really neatly and I really, really hope that if they franchise this that they do it with the same care this film was in, and they keep the same cast of wonderful voice acting talent.

We also met up with another one of my boyfriend's friends and played board games. Not the boring ones like Clue or Monopoly, but hardcore board games. Our gaming round that night was Seven Wonders, which was really, really fun, and we didn't even scratch the surface of it, Settlers of Catan, which I was really bad at and lost horribly, and Panic Station, which is a game I'm going to buy for myself and insist people play with me.

Panic Station is a Zombie Apocalypse game and everyone knows my feelings on those. The goal is simple, discover who is infected, destroy them, and then set the hive on fire to win the game... unless, you're the infected player, in which case, put on your poker face and infect the others!

The game starts with nobody knowing who is infected, and if you pass another player on the board, you HAVE to trade with them, or use an action to shoot/stab them (if possible). Infected players can trade you blood to infect you, but if they trade you a gas can they can negate the infection. It's a game of pointing fingers and shouting and survival.

Now, I have a pretty patented Zombie plan. Trust nobody but yourself. My boyfriend kept trying to make plans with me on how we'd win the game, and I looked him straight in the eye and told him that, even though I loved him dearly, I would take his head off at the first sign of him being infected if this was real, so he might want to just avoid me at all costs because I was prepared to shoot anyone who was near me. It wasn't much of a surprise, to me at least, that I 'won' the first two games.

On the third game, however, I drew the infected card. Teehee. I let the map get explored, I traded away my gas cans and played the good girl. They all suspected my girlfriend of being infected since she was being really suspicious about searching. Then I was set up. I had three rounds of ammo, the best gun and the scope item, along with some health kits and a vest to negate some damage. I'd point fingers and slowly infect everyone else. Someone with some good maneuvering rolls into my room and I sigh and look at him.
"Look, I've got one gascan, and I know you have at least one other of mine. Can you make it to the end and win this so we can move onto another game?"
"With yours, that would make three. I can search these last rooms and win."
"Good, lets trade."
...and I infect him...

Two turns later, I get my girlfriend. A turn later, I suspect she gets our boyfriend. I move, carefully, into the computer scan room and do a heat scan... all four players are infected. I think I did a happy dance, I win! I infected everyone! Bwahahahahahahaha!

We also binged on a LOT of tv time. We cleared Season 2 and most of 3 of Doctor Who, causing both of them...

...alright, all three of us....

to cry like babies when Rose left. We left off right after Blink, so I cannot WAIT for us to get back together and watch the Master bromance up the stage with the Doctor. and to see Jack's sexy ass again. LETS MAKE BABIES JACK.

*ahem*

JackandtheDoctor.


*ahem*

We also watched both Gurren Lagaan movies, 28 Days Later for some awesome 9th Doctor action, Needless, and Steins Gate. We also watched Fern Gulley and Aladdin at the worst possible times ever. Ma, just ignore the next line or so.

You can't have nerd sex with Disney movies/animated classics on. We'll abandon the naked time to sing along and watch the movie instead, just, trust me on this. 

We did have some nice pokemon battles too, I really gotta rework my team to kick both their asses. I pulled out some sick moves with my newfound love, and I don't know why I gave him up in the first place. Charizard, you'll always be my first choice. My girlfriend had a Gastrodon that I set up a perfect, nay, beyond perfect, Sunny Day/Solar Beam on... from my Charizard. I think I'm gonna start breeding for a super Blissey as well, because she's my team runner and I could boost her HP a few extra notches to be an extra large pain in the ass. I might replace Scizor and Machamp as well, I dunno. All I know is that between Bliss and Charizard I'm a happy girl. 

As our time dwindled, I got sad. I really didn't want to go. I liked Canada. I liked spending time with my lovvies, even though my last day there was absolutely hellish. I was so sick the night before I left, and the day I left, that I'd almost give up my awesome hat to feel better. 

 

 

I still wish I was up there with the two of them. Mrrrmph. Well, all good things have to end, eh Doctor? So, I'm back at home, I just got in from an all morning job search, and I'm having a little bit of a mental moment. Uguu.

I might just download some new anime and vegitate for the rest of the day. I'm starting to run out of gas in my car and unemployment is being a dick with my checks.