Wow, it's been way too long since my last post! Sorry everybody - I've had a lot going on the last few weeks, including overtime at work, a very sick uncle in ICU with fluid on his lungs, and I've been trying to purposely trying to avoid my computer at home because I spend so much time sitting in front of one at work and I'm usually massively frustrated by the end of the day. Just wanted to let you all know I'm still alive! I'll probably stop in this weekend, since it looks like I might not have to work on Saturday for the first time in a while, and catch up on things. Hope you bitches are all doing well.

Fun in the trenches, Volume II:

* The prompt that TAKS is using for the 7th-grade essays I'm grading is (I'm paraphrasing) "Discuss a time that you thought you were right about something." Some of the students have used the prompt in very creative ways. Many, for example, have chosen to discuss high-stakes bets that they made on the Superbowl (or other sporting events). With their parents. "I thought I was right that the Cardinals would beat the Steelers, but I guess I was wrong, so now I have to pay my dad the $100 that I owe him." I shit you not.

* I'm also getting a lot of papers about kids giving their parents the wrong directions. "I thought I was right that we needed to take a left at that stop sign, but I guess I was wrong. So now I have to pay my dad the $100 that I owe him." Yes, that's right, they're betting on stuff like that, too. I shit you not.

* While we're on the subject of the prompt, I can't tell you how many times over the last week that I've read some variation of the phrase, "Have you ever had a time when you thought you were right, but turned out to be wrong?" It's usually the first line of the paper; frequently one of the last lines in the paper; and on some occasions, is used in one or more of the paragraphs in the body of the paper. If I'm lucky enough to be reading a paper with discrete paragraphs, that is.

* On a positive note, the colorful use of metaphor is oftentimes quite entertaining. One of my kids referred to something (I forget what exactly) as "permanent like a Sharpie," which I thought was a massive win.

* After a week-plus of grading assessment papers, and taking into consideration the fact that children are our future, I can safely say that apes should be ruling the earth within about 20-30 years.

Fun in the trenches, Volume I:

* Today I graded a paper with large sections written in l33tsp3ak.

* OMG, I LOL every time I see a paper with lots of texting abbreviations in it. I even occasionally ROFLMAO, shortly before saying WTF.

* Most of the essays I've graded thus far read like scripts for really bad episodes of Kids Inc. or Saved by the Bell.

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Enough whining from me. Enjoy:

Hello peoples,

I sat down tonight fully intending to go through My SG (it's mine! you can't have it!) and see what you, my dear friends, have been up to. Unfortunately, after a long week of grading papers and extreme sleep deprivation, I have no energy. So I'll just leave you all with a promise to update over the weekend, and one simple, heartfelt request:

If any of you currently have or are planning on having children, please, for fuck's sake, make sure they learn how to write legibly. And by "legibly," I mean something that can be read without the use of a microscope, and that looks like it was actually written in the Roman alphabet as opposed to, say, sanskrit, or heiroglyphics. Or random scribbling.

Thank you.

For my Irish brothers and sisters throughout the world, be they Protestants, Catholics, or nonbelievers...

For peace and co-existence in the Six Counties...

For the memory of William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Maud Gonne, John Millington Synge, Sean O'Casey, Michael Collins, Charles Parnell, Eamon de Valera, Johnathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Theobald Wolfe Tone, Hugh & Owen Roe O'Neill...

And for the eternal damnation of Oliver Cromwell...

Happy St. Patrick's Day to one and all!

Brief update: I passed my test. My prize: 8 glorious weeks of temp work with a mediocre pay rate! Yay, me!

But seriously, after being unemployed for quite a while now, it's reassuring to have a job, even if it's just a low-paying temp gig. I'm feeling a sense of unbridled joy that can only be expressed through the lilting voices of 48 or more Japanese schoolgirls singing in unison:



(Side note: projecting current trends forward, by the year 2020 every Japanese girl under the age of 18 will be a member of at least one idol group.)

Moderately good news on the job front - yesterday I started a temp position that's supposed to last 8 weeks (if I make it through the training - more on that in a moment). I'll be scoring state-administered assessment tests, specifically the TAKS writing test given to Texas 7th-graders. A few observations:

* Judging by some of the papers I've seen thus far, and the rubrics we're using for scoring purposes, I can only say that I have a heightened appreciation for why our educational system is in the state that it's in.

* 2-page-long run-on sentences =

* Bad penmanship =

* In order to actually work the whole 8-week assignment, I have to successfully complete the two-day training program and pass a 2-part qualification test. I've been having a hard time suppressing my urge to grade the tests based on my own ideas of what a 7th-grader should be capable of as opposed to the watered-down standards the state expects us to apply. More difficult is the fact that much of the grading process is subjective, yet despite this, our grades on the practice papers we're grading for training purposes are supposed to match the consensus grades given to these papers by the people who picked them for the training program. So far, I'm averaging about 60%. I have to get an 80% on both parts of the qualification test.

* I really, really need this job.

* I take my qualification test tomorrow, so wish me luck.

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And now, for your viewing/listening pleasure:



Is there aught we have in common with the greedy parasites
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with their might?
Is there anything left for us but to organize and fight,
While the union makes us strong?











Are you not entertained?

Just got through watching a movie called The Children of Huang Shi with my nephew on his last night in town before going back to New England. It was a well-made movie, and very entertaining, but I was disappointed to find out that the movie played a bit fast and loose with the history upon which it was supposed to be based. The movie was based on the experiences of George Hogg, an English adventurer who did great things in China during the Pacific War, which would eventually merge into WWII. Among the details left out of the movie:

* In addition to founding a school for orphaned boys, Hogg also aided Communist insurgents who were fighting against the Japanese.

* The movie completely ignores the work of New Zealand Communist Rewi Alley, who worked with Hogg and helped him establish his school, not to mention doing a great many other things for the Chinese over the course of 60 years of his life. If I recall correctly, his name wasn't even mentioned in the film.

* Another person who worked with Hogg, New Zealander Kathleen Hall, was retconned into an American named Lee Pearson, and turned into a love interest for Hogg.

I don't have a problem with movies that deal with the past in a creative way, and I can even understand when they get a few minor details wrong in a history-based movie, or fill in the gaps where history has nothing to say - as long as what they fill the gaps in with is consistent with the historical record. But I do have a huge problem with it when filmmakers leave out important facts or change them altogether for dramatic purposes. Oliver Stone in particular is really bad about this (see JFK), but it's a general and pervasive problem. The story of George Hogg would have been plently compelling enough if it had been told as it actually happened, without adding an unnecessary romantic angle and leaving out the equally compelling accomplishments of others simply because they're a little bit too Communist.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.

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And now, for your entertainment, some music...








and dancing...

Just got back about an hour or so ago from picking up my nephew at the airport. He's in town for the next week visiting from Maine. It's always fun when he's back down here in the Metromess, because he's flamboyantly gay and he scares the living be-Jeezus out of the rest of the family. Especially my tongue-speaking Pentecostal aunt, who avoids being around him because she thinks she'll be possessed by his demons. No, I'm not making that shit up. Yes, folks, like cigarette smoke to a lounge jacket, the crazyness sticks to everything down here in Jesusland...

KANCHO!