Writers are dirty gossips. Every single one of us.

The story is in the details -- all those juicy, delicious, forbidden details you can't get from anybody else. The details that people are too afraid to say, the details people can't wait to say, the details that make something so real you'd swear you'd gone through your own magic wardrobe (or T.A.R.D.I.S if you're a sci fi nut).

Writers give the dirt on people, on all those beloved characters that are so, so real because of the mud under their nails and the scrapes on their knees.

Writers share with you the dirt in their own souls.

Writers show you the dirt in your soul.

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut was pretty amazing -- but again, pretty thick to get it all after only one read through.

And it was sad. :(

So I just have Beyonce stuck in my head.

Last night I crashed at six p.m and didn't wake up until 9 p.m. Then we watched Eureka and went to bed shortly after midnight. We decided not to set our alarms because we kinda wanted to sleep in.

MURPHY!

I'm not sure what time I woke up, but I woke up because my stomach was in a tremendous ache. I put my heat pad on it and it seemed to sooth it -- until I felt this huge jolt move through my intestines.

Anyway, for the next several hours, I spent the entire morning worshiping the Porcelain God, my intestines feeling as if someone was wringing them like a washcloth.

So much pain and discomfort I can hardly articulate it.

Most of the time I just ended up climbing into the tub, putting the shower on hot, and just letting it fall on me because our plug is broken.

I did that until about three in the afternoon.

Then I crawled on the couch and slept until sevenish. The only thing I've had to eat in the space of 24 hours is a bowl of Campbell's chicken soup, which is more than my neighbor managed to do.

Yeah. Seems like he woke up with the same bug I did -- though why it was him and me we can't figure out, considering we haven't seen each other, like at all? Or eaten the same food. Or gone to the same places. Or anything.

It's just mildly ironic. I decided to take the day off today and it was like the Universe saying THAT'S RIGHT BITCH! NO SCIENCE PROJECT FOR YOU!

Which is sad because today's xkcd was sort of spin on my project and I was all like -- wah!

Actually -- Murphy, the Universe, Anybody -- I'd like to thank you having me sick on Friday instead of Thursday.

Because then I'd just have to seek you out and punch you in your collective noses.

I'm treating myself to inane internet play.



I think I like this site better than the dragon site because it has prettier artwork and I don't think the egg will die if nobody clicks on it. And that's nice.

Heh, I remember when pegasuses used to be my favorite animal.

(I swear, reading that story today for class just about killed my sense of prose today.)

Kenneth is napping.
Since I am sick, I should nap too.
I have to write at least a first draft of an essay.
I really don't want to.
I don't want to sleep away my weekend, the weekend that is almost over.
I am almost done with Slaughter-house-five.

Tralfamadorians, of course, say that every creature and plant in the Universe is a machine. It amuses them that so many Earthlings are offended by the idea of being machines.

Reading this is making unbearably sad, yet I can't stop.
I haven't had lunch yet. I've only had two eggs. I'm hungry, but only in a detached sort of way, that's gradually becoming more insistent.

That's a good sign, I think. Right?

Everyone is sleeping except for me.

When you promise to teach us how to take an exam students wouldn't usually take until their graduating year, please keep your promise. Please make sure you actually teach the topics or situations that are being covered in the test. This tests on the highest level of Bloom's Taxonomy -- Evaluation (ie, which would be the better response) -- while the highest level you have currently taught us is the Application level, the third level out of six. If you're going to throw the students into the deep end, at least don't have the test count 100 out of 450 points.

When you put on the syllabus that you will provide models of the book reports you want the students to write on request, it would help to respond to such a request. Or are you too busy palling it around with the other professors to respond to a simple email?

Sincerely threatening you with my sonic screwdriver,
Sonja

Workshopping provides a unique opportunity for writers. There's a whole bunch of crap you have to read and, because all these generic things are all close together, ya tend to notice trends boom boom BOOM! After all, when reading quality piece of fiction from the likes of Gaiman or Martin, do you notice the words that are not there, or the words that are there?

There seem to be a lot of stock gestures in a lot of these stories that I'm reading. The most common?

So and So nodded.

Multiple times within a single story.

Oh. My. God.

PEOPLE ARE NOT BOBBLEHEADS.

Other gestures that are close behind: shaking heads, sighing, and shrugging.

All of which I am incredibly guilty of inserting into my writing. And it's time I fix it. So I'm creating a Meme (I'm sure there's a meme like this somewhere floating around, but damned if I've never seen it).

Observe yourself. Pay attention to your body when you move. Pay attention to your emotions and how it affects your body. Jot down as many as you can think of. Consider yourselves tagged.

1. I tongue my molar when I'm concentrating.
2. I kick my foot when I'm trying to fall asleep.
3. I pick my lips when I'm bored.
4. I tuck my thumb into my palm and press down with my other fingers when I exercise.
5. I braid the flyaways of my hair when I watch TV.
6. When I watch romantically themed train wrecks unfold on screen I either watch between my fingers, or screw one eye closed.
7. When I walk, the boot of one foot collides with the ankle other foot more often than I care to admit.
8. I squish and curl my lips inward when I type.
9. I crank my neck and give it a good old crack more often than I probably should
10. I rock a whole lot of the time. Back and forth, no matter what I'm sitting on. No matter the mood.

Sure there are more but these are what immediately comes to mind.

In my first SED class, our assignment is to construct a test for chapter 9.

Which is like, cool. There are several kinds of test formats -- the one I'm using is a mixture of fill in the blank with short answer. I figure, this way, I can cover the basic knowledge and definition while the short answer will provide a prompt encouraging the student to apply the knowledge they have in a higher level on Bloom's taxonomy. I'm not doing multiple choice because I'm lazy and don't feel like constructing it, even though it could cover more material (but I figure, if I'm going to do a short answer, weekly quizzes could cover the not quite so important test material type stuff). Homework could also embed the other less important stuff too, and also serve as practice runs for the test itself.

Of course, the chapter I'm creating a test over is an eye opener for me about just how poor my study skills really are. I've decided that I'm going to revise them (well, that's the plan -- my "science project" might just call me away through an event horizon). And I have a plan.

On Fridays, I will read the assigned readings with the usual list of what, when, where, why, who, and how. This is, of course, just simple reading comprehension, the remembering and understanding levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.

On Sunday, I will re-read it again, but this time I will attempt to identify certain themes and how they play throughout the reading. I will them attempt to establish a connection with either themes we have already talked about in class or how it relates to the particular movement we are discussing (probably analyzing under Bloom's Taxonomy). I will also compare the story and characters to other works previously read. This will probably end up being a blog entry. Will also begin the same process for Thursday's reading.

On Monday, I will re-read the text again and make my own critique (free range! whatever will I do). This will cover the Evaluation level of the taxonomy.

I figure essays cover the creation part of this suitably well. And since I've already set up such a solid foundation with the studying, I'm sure I could write some killer essays. Which just makes me sad that the semester is already half over and I'm just doing this now!

Saturdays are blank because I've officially designated them as my day off.

On larger works, such as my SED class which are often chapters long, I will probably split it in half and simply prioritize which subjects I want to learn so thoroughly. Because reading sixty pages of that text book three times would probably kill me.

I got my midterm grade back again. A 97. It's cool -- I got nixed off three points for an incomplete essay. It's cool. I decided to talk to my professor about the essay...just because.

Remember in the entry below where I said I didn't feel like I connected to my professors this year? Well, I think this was a somewhat pathetic attempt to rectify that. And after we talked about it (and he translated his somewhat messy handwriting), he said that he was impressed with what I had to say in class (which came as a surprise because he rarely follows up with what I have to say) and that I was a sharp writer.

Which melted me into a puddle of goo and I still can't decide if I should take his class next semester because I really want to, but then I also really want to take mythology (which totally seems at odds with my sci-fi-look-to-the-future stance I have going on right now).

His class was canceled this Thursday. I am actually disappointed because I really enjoy his class.

You know -- even though I feel like utter crap right now and I'm not really looking forward to this month at all -- I have to say that, right now, even though everything is kind of going all wrong -- it is also going absolutely right.

The world was revealing its death to me by the process of slow discovery: the slowly gnawing loss of innocence; and I found myself longing for the God in Whom, unquestioningly, I had believed as a child. But this world of loneliness and desperation belied Him. The sky was now a black cave where once it had been limitless, stretching into that Heaven of childhood angels and peace.

As the doleful sounds of the bells from the church across the street mourned into the night, I looked from the roof in the direction of Pershing Square:

One day, in sorrow at His own creation, God plunged into Hell...Now the world spun dizzily like a ferris wheel out of control.

I managed to get in with the same teacher as last time. We went to the library and watched the students do lab work for an essay. I didn't mind. It gave me an opportunity to talk to the teacher and to observe the students, which had been difficult to do with an actual lesson. I knew that teaching was hard work and that it required someone insane to do it, but knowing that and hearing it from someone who's already juggling an observer, a roomful of bored students, and kids who won't work for one reason for another was different.

I still want to be a teacher.

My Sed teacher -- the good one, not the one that romanticizes teaching into one of those cliched movies where everyone walks away successful and happy -- has often told us how much work it is. That nobody would choose to become a teacher if it weren't for a certain gene (i'm pretty sure he's being metaphoric) which he called the Helping Gene, or if a person was out of their gourd.

The helping gene is self explanatory I think.

I've never really considered myself as someone who wants to help people because I know just how selfish I can be. I do like helping people. I have let people use me for information and notes. I like being the only person who bothered to take good notes and thus able to save the day.

I like saving the day.

I'll never have children. I'm okay with this. I am not okay with being unremembered. Erikson would probably say I was fulfilling my need to make a difference in the next generation by becoming a teacher. He is probably right.

I have few friends, and I have often felt isolated from society in general. I am not okay with this any longer.

My fellow wanna-be English teachers have little interest in teaching those students in the lower ability groupings, or in teaching Freshman English. I want to teach those people. I know that I will do a better job than someone who does not want to be there. I also don't see the point in teaching Senior English if the instruction in the previous years was so crappy they can't do the really fun stuff. Some of the students in today's class were in the lower ability groupings. They had difficulties writing an essay. Nip it in the bud I say. Nip it in Freshman English if they were so unfortunate to have teachers who didn't nip it in middle school, elementary school, primary school. I want to begin at the beginning.

I want to learn Spanish. There was an ESL kid, Angel, who stared at the computer for the entire 50 minutes. He didn't type a word. The teacher said he was a good kid, but that he shut down. I wondered if Angel wouldn't have shut down if the teacher had been able to explain it to him in Spanish. I know that some people would say that if you come to America you should speak English. Before we pushed West, the people spoke Mexican. There is a story called The Squatter and the Don where, in his own native land, it was the Don who had to speak in English and ask if the squatters needed an interpreter in order to understand him, instead of the other way around. In his native land, he lost the power of his own language. Perhaps, it should have been us who learned Spanish (and before that the native language). Maybe instead of speaking English today, we should be speaking a new language that was both English and Spanish. I mean, even if that is naieve, that is the logical follow through of, if you come to such and such land you better speak the damn language, right?

Of course, it didn't work out like that. But today is different. What harm is there in bilingualness? I can think of none. And, even so, what's the point of teaching if the goal isn't to learn in whatever way necessary?

There was a co-teacher there, too. She had to take her English licensing test twice because they didn't pass her the first time. The second time she marked herself as white and didn't change any of her answers. She passed the test. I also heard a story where someone marked himself as African-American on a job or internship application. They interviewed him by phone and called him in for an in person interview. When they saw that he was not African-American, their entire attitude changed and he did not get the job or internship.

Really, World? Really?

I've never actually read the Feminist Manifesto by Mina Loy before -- and it does read rather densely and I'm sure I do not understand everything in it (and I'm pretty sure there are some parts I disagree), but there was a particular quote that I rather enjoyed so I decided to post it on my blog for future reference/memory/edification.

To obtain results you must make sacrifices & the first & greatest sacrifice you have to make is of your "virtue" The fictitious value of woman as identified with her physical purity--is too easy a stand-by---rendering her lethargic in the acquisition of instrinsic merits of character why which she could obtain a concrete value--therefore, the first self-enforced law for the female sex, as a protection against the man made bogey of virtue--which is the principle instrument of her subjection, would be the unconditional surgical destruction of virginity through-out the female population at puberty --.

The part I didn't agree with:

Every woman has a right to maternity--
Every woman of superior intelligence should realize her race-responsibility, in producing children in adequate proportion to the unfit or degenerate members of her sex --

That just seems a bit of a question mark moment there to me. How, exactly, is she defining unfit or degenerate? What exactly is "superior intelligence"?

I'm pretty sure there are some class/race issues underlying the statement -- will be interesting to discuss this in class this coming Tuesday.

Also, I kept the way it was printed in my book because it is pretty cool. Lots of underlines, bolds, different sized fonts, and even caps!

It's like typewriters gone wild.

Before I continue, I would like to say that the teacher I observed seemed to be a very cool teacher.

He had multiple posters of the Marvel Universe. One Fantastic Four poster. The Lion King poster. A poster of Yoda. A Lord of the Rings Ring-wraith poster.

The back of the room was full of shelves. R.A Salvadore. Harry Potter. Two entire shelves of Star Trek paperbacks (Deep Space 9 and Voyager mostly). The collected works of H.G Wells (which I still haven't read, damn me!)

I Geekgasmed. Melted in a puddle of nerdy goo.

I liked the way he opened the class. Read a newspaper article about the Illegal Alien Costume. Had the students answer the questions Where, When, Who, What, Why, How -- basic reading comprehension. This was a senior class, so I was surprised they were doing that when mom taught us those things in middleschool, but maybe that's normal to keep going over it? What I thought wasn't normal was how much trouble the students had with it.

Afterwards he finished a powerpoint about medeival history -- a basic foundation before going through Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (I kinda squeed because I had just done that in the summer and was anxious to see how it would compare).

Erm. Well, it didn't. I mean, not really. The teacher ran out of time to actually teach it, but I was looking through the text in the textbook.

And, my gods -- it was like...abridged. With all the important parts taken out. They left out the entire epic arming scene -- you know, the whole thing with the symbolism of the shield and everything! Which is especially disappointing because in the presentation on medieval history he did, he also had a slide about heraldry -- so if I was stuck with that rotten textbook I'd probably bring the text regarding the arming scene too because it really is kind of important (even if I seriously disagree with the philosophy).

He also talked about the TAKS retesting -- apparently some students had failed. And some students still didn't know how to write an essay? That sort of bothered me. I mean, they are seniors...shouldn't writing essays be almost second nature?

All in all though, I had a lot of fun. I was watching him and I knew I could do it, and that it was something that I wanted to do.

So I thought I needed a new layout and then I saw this one, the one with the HAND bubbling in the transparent container.

And I was like, that is SO the Doctor's hand.

All the other randomosities could also be assumed alien in origin, though I do find them particularly suited to Halloween.

But! Doctor! Hand!

Today was surreal.

( dream )

( Poetry Moment )

( Ability Grouping )

( Resistance is Futile MWAHAHAHAHA )

We just finished The Sun Also Rises and one of the key issues discussed in class was how the story portrayed masculinity.

One of the questions asked was who was the most masculine man represented and, if that question is asked, then one must also ask who was the least masculine. One of the girls thought that Robert Cohn was the least masculine because he cried near the end, cried for Brett and the betrayal of his own moral values. The teacher and the class agreed with her.

And I could only think how Odysseus and all those other Greek heroes cried all the time.

After that thought flitted away, I, too, had to agree because I do not believe that Hemingway meant a crying man to be a good thing (though it would be interesting to know what he thought about Odysseus as a manly man). Which is a shame -- the world would be easier if there weren't any gender standards.

But then there'd be less to write or think about.

So, for SED class I had to draw a coat of arms.

I know. Who'da thunk this was college, right? And not only that, we had to share the coat of arms with the group and my normal group was gone so I had to do it with strangers and it was awful.

I don't think any of the group I found myself in were nerds. One of the things I had to draw/write (write because I can't draw) were three words to describe myself. Accordingly I chose:

Grok
Poot-ee-weet
Allonsy!

And the girls gave me blank faces and asked me, "Are those words real?"

I said they were because Allonsy is real, I think -- or so says the Doctor. And you know, a select circle of people use Grok occasionally (and it's in the dictionary), but before I had a chance to properly explain it all, the teacher thankfully interrupted the class, so I was spared the ordeal.

One of the others were what part of yourself do you like the best or some such. I drew all my excellent books to show that I love my most excellent tastes.

Another was, what do you value most in life? I drew (I use the term loosely of course) a pyramid (mostly because I was thinking about SG-1), the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, the U.S.S Enterprise, and a little stick figure man with his hands up (and I forgot to put the YATTA! in) to celebrate human creativity. It actually looked pretty cool -- stick figures and all.

I was scheduled for observation hours on the twelfth. When I called to confirm, the assistant principle sounded SO confused. "But that's Columbus Day."

And I'm thinking, we still have a day dedicated to that guy? So after a bit of confused, oh-i'm-so-glad-you-called! she scheduled me on the 14th.

And then I checked my email.

The 14th's not good enough! There's PSAT testing going on!

I'm still expecting a letter with the info that no, the 19th STILL isn't good enough.

Simultaneously relieved and frustrated because going into a public high school is mildly terrifying but not getting it over with is nerve wrangling.

Spent five hours in the emergency room today. Not to worry, after an EKG and an X-ray, they decided that the pain in Ken's chest and left arm were just inflamed chest muscles.

We didn't want to go at all (because we figured the chances of it being a heart attack were on the slim side), but when the pain persisted overnight, we called the family doctor to make an appointment, they told us to go to the emergency room. So we did and it took forever (this right after we finished our other medical bills!).

So how was everybody else's Monday?

I had this dream a couple of days ago. I'm not sure why I remember it after so much time has passed -- it's one of my more violent dreams (the last violent dream I had was when I still lived in either California or Oklahoma), but the plot itself is rather generic. It's also one of the rare dreams in which I remained myself, though it appears I was myself in a vague, dark, alternate future with tall buildings and dark, doomy clouds surrounding.

I received a text (which then somehow morphed into a scroll) that They were coming for our children (which we didn't have) and that we should run, skedaddle, get the heck outa town. Ken and I, being the brave, resilient folk that we are, refused.

Instead, we hauled out our guns: I armed myself with a small, snub nosed revolver while Ken took a rather large, spiffy hand gun.

The bullets we used were huge, like mini, plastic playschool like missiles. They bigger than the entire length of my own short gun. But then, the rules of physics never apply in dreams.

Men armed all in black strode up the sidewalk, guns pointed towards us. We told them very politely to leave, but they refused. When they refused and continued their advance, I looked at Ken and then shot the intruder in the chest. He immediately toppled over and a fight ensued. Even though I only had six bullets in my own gun and an unspecified number in Ken's with an apparently limitless number of men, we eventually prevailed.

Another team assaulted us while we reloaded, whom we also dispatched in short order.

Then a lady approached. She was dressed all in Green (oh, Hello Narnia), but she was also pregnant. Ken and I were both very loathe to shoot her. She talked with us and we refused to surrender. When Ken turned away from her, she withdrew a blaster from her sleeve -- a cartridge of green energy attached to it -- and zapped Ken in the back of the neck.

He collapsed, dead.

Consumed with rage, I ran her off a cliff where, I assume, she fell to her death.