5/26/2010

Recent Facepalms

1. Black student walking out of quiz on To Kill a Mockingbird - citing that the book was racist. No, son - characters in the book are racist. The narrator, and ultimately the moral of the book, are not. If the story was told from the view of a 7-year-old bigot in Alabama in the Dirty Thirties, I'd burn it myself. There's your subtly bold statement of the day.

2. Deliberately avoiding the adult education centre washroom in favour of the hairstyling school washroom, only to find urine all over every single toilet seat. Ladies, pay attention! I was counting on you!

3. "If I've shaved my legs and am wearing panties underneath, is it acceptable for me to leave the house in your boxers, in this heat?"
"Knock yourself out. You'll still be covering more of your ass than the pregnant teenager we saw last night."

4. Despite being rather educated, I'll be in high school on my 25th birthday. Which is tomorrow. Send me chocolate. Also send me central air conditioning. Kthx love you!

Editor's note;
I'm not sure which is more disturbing, #1 or #3. Regardless, I left the house in his underwear.

5/21/2010

Continued Education

In 2003, when I was meant to graduate, I fucked up. I really fucked up. I admit, however, that I fucked up, and seven years later made a final effort to resolve my serious issues. So I currently attend an adult learning centre, as the more polite people might refer to it.

It's an old French school, taken over by the Catholic school board, and overrun with all the types of people who just don't cut it to their first high school graduations. Now, don't get me wrong. This institution caters a lot of services to a lot of different kinds of people, and it's a useful and important facet of society. In turn, the people who choose to attend this place of their own accord deserve measured respect. I'm not putting the school down.

I'll just continue on to tell you that I was not surprised in the least when my English teacher today told me that the book we're presently reading is often the only book her students have ever completed in their lives. I was not surprised, and that fact disturbed me more than anything else. In jovial fashion I replied that if this book was the only thing they could say they'd read next to magazines and sports statistics or price tags, then she should consider her job done. We had a laugh, and off I went.

We're reading To Kill A Mockingbird.

Originally, I had been incredibly distraught at being "forced" to read, and have read to me, a book that had been in my possession for the last decade. I made a point to sleep or draw through this class for the first few weeks. After hearing her admit what she did, however, I plan to thoroughly enjoy discussing my favourite book for three hours every day until June.

Because I can.

Perhaps you might tell me that I'm full of myself. I'm no Rhodes scholar, you could say, and here I am acting like I'm the queen of England herself. That's fine, that's perfectly fine - you can go read Perez Hilton, for my meager blog of silly is wasting space on your iPod screen. Until Project Gutenberg puts up Harper Lee, it seems I will be part of a dying breed. That's fine too.

Small satisfactions.

Now, on the other hand, if you actually enjoy reading - go thank whomever it was that taught you to read. Thank them. They gave you a gift that you have not squandered. It's really polite to thank people for giving you very useful gifts.

Any of our other staff members (particularly Mr. V) can tell you how judgmental I can be towards random strangers - any of the following will come out of my passengerial observations during car rides:

"Holy shit lady, bleach your goddamn roots!"
"PROSTITOT!"
"I didn't know Derelicte fashion was a real thing."
"Do you suppose you could stop fawning in your rearview long enough to GO, BITCH?! YOU'RE NOT THAT CUTE!"
"Did she wake up and decide to just poke her feet into some dead otters?"

But those are people who will not hear the insults from behind the closed window of a car speeding by. IRL, if you will, when I am meeting new people and doing my weight and measured, the rules are different. I don't pass judgment on a lot of things in social interactions, mostly just how I'm being socially interacted with. I certainly don't pass judgment on people who were never given an opportunity to enjoy reading, and you can tell who those people are.

BUT PEOPLE WHO JUST DON'T LIKE READING BECAUSE IT'S BORING AND SOMETHING BETTER IS PROBABLY ON TV N TALK LYK DIS ALL DA TIME N DONT KNO HOW 2 RITE PROPR SENTINSIS CUZ DEY ONLY EVR TALK ON DA INTRNT OR DEY CELLIES, AMiRITE????

Those people can rot in hell.

That's all. As you were!