Did I ever say I hated my students? Did I ever call them dumb? They're not--as of today, they're officially great. That's been two days in a row with good in-class discussion, and lest my ears deceive me, a compliment or two to boot. Considering that we're discussing poetry, about which I feel much more qualified than, say, the literature of Kipling or Sophocles or Ghandi, I'm wishing we were going to spend the whole quarter on it instead of three days. Alas, the book review is calling all our...
Last night I figured out how to go back in time. What an amazing discovery! It's only by five minutes, but hey--that's plenty of time to take back something stupid I might have said, or to undo an embarrassing trip or stumble, or to avoid dropping things, car accidents, meeting my ex in the ice cream aisle of the supermarket--all kinds of things. Boy howdy, I'm a lucky woman. You see, my alarm clock is equipped with a squishy button on top that allows me to turn time back five minutes. This w...
Fiance and I went out to eat yesterday evening. It was a bad day and we went to his favorite place, where we usually get great service from our usual waiter. The price is a little over $12 each, plus drinks, so it's middle of the road. I don't know what kind of management changes they'd had but our waitress and host were definitely new. Our waitress was horrible. It took her 10 minutes to take our order, which is pretty bad since we go there all the time and pretty much know what we want befo...
DEAR EVERYONE WHO OVERUSES CAPITAL LETTERS, IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU'RE YELLING. Don't you think that a writer sounds calmer when you write with the correct capitalization? And maybe to emphasize a word, you could put asterisks around it (at least that's what *I* do) or, better yet, reword your sentence. That's how I would change the e-world. And for what it's worth, from a typographical viewpoint, it's really hard to read all caps. If I could change the real world, it would explode. But at ...
Partially because I'm a masochist (according to its secondary definition), I go through every single comment anyone ever posts on anything I've ever posted. I analyze it to pieces, get mad, write a stinging reaction which I then e-mail to myself, wait a few hours or days, then write a reply which I post. Then I sit nervously, wondering if I accidentally pissed anyone off, and my heart beats a little too fast when I see that there is a new comment. Another reason I hate my field of study, jour...
Having majored in communications, I generally just snort when someone suggests a vast liberal media conspiracy. As if we journalists have time to get together every day and say, "So, BobLindaMikeMitchFitchBobthesecondGeraldandGeraldine, whom shall we crucify today?" And we go through the video clips and sound bites and decide to make someone sound and look stupid. --Oh, wait, no. Sorry. No time. Doesn't happen, though I'll grant that people attracted to journalism tend to have similarities. That...
Day 1: Official Teacher-reads-the-syllabus-while-students-struggle-to-stay-awake-day Bleak outlook. Students are tired. Worse, Professor is tired. It's 8 a.m. far too soon after New Year's and no one, least of all me, cares to hear what I have to say in the syllabus. So I finish quickly and have them free-write for 20 minutes to give me an idea of their grasp on English, which might be better than mine. Preparing first lecture for day 2. Do I really have to talk for an hour? Students won't w...
Okay, see, isn't is usually the *girl* who wants to have/plan/revolve life around a wedding? It's the girl 'cause she wants a dress, flowers, pretty hair, pictures, etc., right? That's what conventional stereotypes tell me. They also whisper in my ear that I could use more propriety and that I could stand to wear nylons once in awhile, which is why I hate conventional wisdom and feminine stereotypes AND, as it happens, wedding planning. So fiance and I are getting married, theoretically in J...
Ah, the wedding toasts. Also known as my family's big chance to embarrass me/get me back for all the times I was the obnoxious youngest child. Not that I don't somehow deserve it, but perhaps the wedding isn't the best place, hmm? So Dear Old Dad will get up and say, Well, Tullola will hate me for saying this..., and launch into a most-detailed account of the embarrassing highlights of my life, beginning with peeing all over my grandpa when I was four, including the episode where I went out t...
1. Remember passwords to all e-mail, blog, bank, ATM, etc. accounts 2. Decide if Vile Boyfriend should be sacked for failing to remember to come to family dinner, which am currently hiding from in effort to avoid showing red face, puffy eyes, and extremely pissed off mood 3. Stop writing in Helen Fielding/Bridget Jones's Diary style 4. Stop reading Helen Fielding/Bridget Jones's Diary-like books in effort to (1) read more important books and (2) sound more knowledgeable about the stuff ...
Not only did I give my brother, who just turned 26, a Nerf gun for Christmas, but a *rapid-fire* Nerf gun. Am constantly dodging from wall to wall to avoid bruises. House sounds like plastic battlefield. Feel like real soldier. Who knew you could enjoy such clutter in your twenties?
My bloody father likes to elicit reactions from me. In short, he likes to piss me off, then say, relax, geez, you're so uptight, to which I respond by walking away or ignoring him (a rabid fear of heights prevents me from taking the high road). Today we're watching football, my team fails to block a goal, my bloody father says oh bravo! let's see that again, and I say oh hell, must shower, and turn the telly off in a fit of disgust. Bloody Father says Tullola, that was very rude. I take the high...