17 posts from May 2008

Who was the meanest teacher you had in school?

Ooh, this one's a tie.  There was Mrs. Macintosh for first and second grade, and she was pretty mean.  I was an extremely well-behaved kid, thanks to all of the abusive conditioning that I received in pre-school, but I was still afraid of her.  I remember in first grade, she made this one kid pee in his seat because it was lesson time, not bathroom time.  And there was this one time that we were doing flash cards, and she yelled at me because she didn't see my mouth moving enough, though, to be fair, I had this thing in first grade where I would try to speak without moving my mouth much.  It's also around the same time I learned how to burp on command.  I found all sorts of new talents in first grade.  

Then there was Mrs. Vernon for fifth grade.  She gave me my first card (we had a card-based disciplinary system) ever.  It was for getting too many math problems wrong on the homework.  I'm not really sure how math and classroom behavior are related, but I'm sure they are, at least in the same twisted dimension that these types of people are considered good teachers.  

And it's not that these people were necessarily bad people, they just employed extremely negative reinforcement tactics for classroom management.  

I didn't really like any of my teachers from first to fifth grade, to be honest.  Once I left Baptist school and went to public school, I actually liked school, and my sixth grade teacher.  And I found all of the brainwashing about the evils of public school that I received in Baptist school to be false.

These teachers are long gone, and actually, the weird thing?  My cousin has taken the fifth grade teaching spot at this school (we both went there).  I didn't realize that you didn't have to be qualified in any capacity to teach children in order to be a teacher there.  So it makes sense why I had such a rough time of it.   

Today, I'm going to be somewhat productive.  I have to go to the bank to deposit my shiny economic stimulus check, which will help me help the economy by paying my rent.  It came at a really great time since I'm taking a few days of unpaid leave.  I could take this time to once again rip into the media giant that I work for, but even though they've posted huge profits for the last quarter, the fact that they only cut our sick days in half is still quite generous.

This could be the product of too time on my hands to peruse the Internet, along with the fact that I just bought that Holga and that I'm surrounded by cameras and people who talk about cameras, but I've become interested in film cameras again.  I have a 35 mm Canon Rebel XS with the kit 35-80 mm zoom lens that I bought in 1999 and used like crazy until about 2001:  

CanonRebel3_4

Now it just sits in the closet in its bag.  And yes, that is my Tigger strap.  The funny thing is that I never really wanted a plastic SLR.  I learned on a completely manual SLR from the 70s, and that's the kind of SLR that I really wanted.  I just had no idea where to get one.  Don't get me wrong; the Rebel's a really nice camera, I really like it, and I have some emotional attachment to it, but part of me has always wanted that mechanical feeling that you get from an older camera.  Seeing as how I never use it, I think I'm going to sell it and buy a Pentax K2:

PentaxK2

 I was initially looking at the Pentax MX, which is very similar to the K2, but smaller and without an aperature-priority mode.  We went to this little camera and camera repair store yesterday, a tiny hole in the wall in Woodland Hills called Superior Camera.  The store was packed, absolutely packed, with lenses and cameras, many of which were refurbished film cameras of all sorts.  I inquired about the MX, and though I'm sure the guy had it, he handed me the K2 with a 50 mm lens, and told me to take a look at it instead.  And of course, now I want the K2.  And it's a good deal: $250 with a 50mm 2.0 lens (though I'd prefer a 1.4) and a six-month warranty.

See, and I told myself I wouldn't do this.  Film is a pain in the ass.  But I like it.

We got to go out to dinner last night with two of my friends, Melissa and Ray.  It was very exciting.  Yay, friends!  Yay, getting out of the house!  I miss people.  Not that I don't see at least one every day, but it's nice to have variety.  They just moved into a new place, and last night was the first time I've seen it.  I'm very jealous.  It's a three-bedroom top floor of a duplex on a very quiet dead-end with lots of big trees.  Very spacious, very nice, especially for the price.  

As a general rule, I'm against Internetspeak, bad spelling, and poor grammar.  However, I find lolcats funny.  I admit it, and I'm not going to apologize for it.

So the new GI Bill passed the Senate Yesterday.  If you're curious at all how the voting went, I stole this handy link from maddowonline.com.  Not surprisingly, Senator McCain didn't support it.  Actually, he didn't bother to vote at all. There were two other senators that didn't vote: Senator Kennedy, who was just diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor (so he wasn't present, understandably), and Senator Coburn.  I'm not really sure what Senator Coburn's story is, but anyhow.  

It's thundering and sprinkling outside right now.  I like thunder.  It's weird and unusual, and I like it.  I don't like how it was 100 degrees just a few days ago, and now it's 65 or so degrees.  I mean, I'd rather have it be cooler, but the huge drop in temperature is a bit of a shock to the system.

What's your favorite type of cheese? Or, if you don't like cheese, why not?
Submitted by Draegon Scribe.

I wasn't going to answer this, but I'm feeling rather unoriginal.  I went to eat some soy cheese this evening, and realized that it has casein in it.  What's the bloody point of eating soy cheese if it's going to have milk protein in it?  I mean, it is cholesterol-free and practically lactose-free, but dammit, I want my soy cheeses to be animal product free.  It's completely my fault for not looking carefully at the package before buying it, now isn't it?

But to actually answer the question, though I don't eat cheese anymore, smoked gouda and american cheese were my favorite.  My goal is to find a fake cheese that tastes similar to smoked gouda, which I'm quite sure exists.  Finding fake cheese that tastes like american cheese is pretty easy as american cheese doesn't actually taste much like cheese.

I think we're going to have a field trip to Whole Paycheck tomorrow to get some delicious, healthy, easy vegan things.  I usually won't shop at Whole Foods because, as my little jab implies, it's quite expensive.  I can easily spend an entire day's pay in one trip.  But they do have an amazing array of locally grown organics as well as vegan and raw foods.  And I apparently don't get hungry when I'm sitting around all day.  Go figure.  The only indication that I get that I need to eat is that I get all shaky and nauseated.  Neat.  And I already don't feel like making food.  And if I don't eat with my crazy hardcore antibiotic, I feel horrible.

Tomorrow, I'm seeing a neurologist.  It's actually an appointment that I made quite some time ago to discuss the weird blurry eye, possible optic migraine thing.  I'll ask him about the weird one pupil larger than the other too.  And maybe he can look at my staples, just for kicks.

Wow, I forgot what happens when I don't go to work.  Not a whole lot.  Last night, I slept about 11 hours.  I really needed it.  I didn't get a lot of rest in the hospital, and general anesthesia takes a lot out of you.  My throat finally stopped hurting from the breathing tube, which is pretty cool.  My anesthesiologist actually came by after the procedure to make sure I was okay and didn't have any chipped teeth or anything horrible like that.  That was really nice.

Show us what you're working on right now.
Submitted by yygall.

I actually just finished it:

MouseAndCatFINAL