School

Sep. 8th, 2009 12:15 pm
fufumira: (books!)
Today is the end of the first furlough weekend of the abbreviated school year. Oh yeah, this semester is truncated, decapitated, castrated, shortened by something like three weeks. Blech. So, while classes have been gutted and a score of students unceremoniously dumped on their butts, denied access to classes, denied financial aid because they have been denied classes and basically fraudulently offered an education that the school is patently unequipped to provide to them due to having over-enrolled and underprovided for said enrollment the state's jails are receiving more money (than education) and they're trying to close state park. We are nearly dead last in education as a state. This is ridiculous. This is criminal. The people that are more interested in jails than schools should spend some time in... well I can't decide if jail or school is a worse punishment here.

Oh well, barring complete closure of the entire system next semester for which they would surely provide nothing other than a polite 'fuck you' probably the first day of classes, without giving any aid in transferring or anything, based on their previous track record of being totally stupid about communicating vital information in a timely fashion.

The worst part is that I really do have some fantastic teachers, although I know that they really lost a lot of great instructors in the big cuts they made over the summer (also a couple stinkers buahaha). And while many teachers are doing their best to get as many students in as they can, they are hampered by our total physical capacity and the sheer reality of too many butts and not enough chairs. It's a giant game of chicken for some, as they wait for the other person to blink and drop the class. They should make a reality show, it's already like one.

I gotta go study, play rock band and try and make up for the gaps in my education.
fufumira: (shoes)
We got a Sprinkles sort of close by and now we are having a minor coming of the cupcake-opolis. And I now know that I adore Red Velvet cake and I have a small minor tiny speck of understanding for that Armadillo Groom cake from "Steel Magnolias" you know the one? Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we managed to turn in papers for one of our online classes relatively quickly, quite the feat given just how little actual sleep has been happening (gosh darn mental rodeo clowns). Brains need to be quiet sometimes yeah? I think that if my paper had been a game of crazy disconnected American Government themed SAT word Scrabble, I would have won. A lot. I do not know what my damage is that when I'm completely exhausted I revert to language so completely complicated. Just now I wanted to use some fuzzy fancy schmancy word there! It's a disease! And the worst part is that once I started in on the long words for the paper, I couldn't stop. I sort of wanted to stop, I mean there's no real added value in making it harder to read...though it may have been a subconscious streak of vindictiveness against the regime of confusion that we labour under for this class. Also, the book... I've read more exciting descriptions of paint peeling. For the last reading assignment terrible British accents were necessary to fool the brains into listening and accepting the information. The worst part is that it is mostly duh stuff. But, because of the way the teacher has structured the quizzes and assignments, careful reading of the text is absolutely necessary, because the questions are sort of weaving treacherously in and out of logical sense like *insert cautionary reckless celebrity here* in traffic. Also, I worried that I was using too much of the phrasing of the book and the eventual foray into wiki-oogle to answer the questions precisely as she wants them (complete with current sources). As the paper continued, my word choice got more and more Rube Goldbergian, in the struggle to avoid even the appearance of plagiarism. A teacher once told me that a sure fire way to find a cheater is when the voice and word choices don't match within the text of the paper, which contributed to the irrational way in which I clung to the idiotic overly verbose manner in which I could not stop writing. How many times do you really need to use the word "necessitated" in one paper? Frankly, I did not have the time to rewrite it with a less confusing writing style, so I just stuck to the crazy complicated Family Circle Method*tm to get to my points. I did learn something that I hadn't known before, which is that under the Articles of Confederation.... Canada was totally invited to join up whenever they wanted. So that would have been a way different country had they taken us up on it. It has been a super long week. I've been working on the most boring filing job I have had to do in a dog's age (thanks part time availability! *kiss kiss*) and spending time being stressed and sleepless. I interviewed for a work-study on Monday. I didn't hear back, so I'll just assume that the third interview was not the charm and move on to looking for something else. Then this boring obvio assignment on stuff I've known for a looong time. No wonder politicians are crooks... at least it makes the process of government somewhat interesting! Meh, that's perhaps unfair to crooks. And to the government. Really I mostly blame the book.

On Saturday mornings I generally resemble in some small way some poor befuddled denizen of the wild, what with my fuzzy hair, smudged eye makeup, and the curious skittish demeanor exhibited as I emerge from the protracted hibernation induced by 'oh thank you sweet fluffy cupcake king, it is the weekend' euphoria. Despite this slight resemblance, I am not the type of girl to be all like down and dirty with the, um down and dirty critters. So, upon a victory walk to the Bell of the Taco... (mmm celebration post homework tacos, is anything sweeter?) we encountered a big fat raccoon. It apparently is living in the storm drains. From a cohabitation save the planet and all the animals stand point it is fascinating that they've figured out how to coexist with humans. But I saw "Over the Hedge". I wonder what is down there? I mean is it a nice comfy raccoon pad, complete with digital cable and killer wifi? Is the raccoon poaching wireless? Has he seen the ninja cat video on youtube? Fortunately we had DasGoob with us and he's tall.. so yeah. He protected our ankles from rabid, youtube watching raccoons.... then I realised that they are in the storm drains, using them as little raccoon roads, they could follow us and we would never know! So [livejournal.com profile] teaandauguries  though that it was following me... so I'm looking forward to the dreams filled with shadow society shinobi raccoons stalking me through the storm drains. I wonder if they know Michaelangelo and his friends? Do they order pizza down there? Hmm... I'm gonna go check the back door lock again. I hope the ninja turtles know about your creepy habits raccoon!

Adulthood

Apr. 6th, 2006 08:42 am
fufumira: (falafel)
Yesterday I found out that I have jury duty in May. Which is a first for me. It makes me feel all growed up. I almost hope that I do get picked. Mostly because I'm interested in how the system works (or doesn't) and I've always felt it was slightly annoying how hard people try to get out of it. I mean... how is that cool? To be tried by a jury of people too dumb to evade their civic responsibility. How can we expect the system to work when that is the case?

People are always getting pissed off because of miscarraiges of justice and innocent people going to jail... and then turning around and trying to get out of jury duty. Is it inconvienent, sure. It's time and money certainly. It's not really all that fun. But it's also an important part of how our country is supposed to function. Even my family has been guilty of trying to escape it. (and not for money reasons)

I wonder if, in part, it's symptomatic of our nation's inability to slow the hell down. Everyone's hurrying and scurrying to stay ahead of the steam roller of life and people rarely have time to do the things they deem extra. Sometimes though, the things that fall to the wayside are really important, like children and spouses and the ideals of freedom that make our lives possible. Perhaps the system wouldn't be so screwed up if people stopped getting angry and spewing rhetoric and started trying to make a real difference, by doing their job as citizens.

Or maybe we just take it all for granted. I know I sometimes do. It boggles the mind that there are places in the world where saying something inappropriate or just expressing a point of view can get you dead. Freedom of Speech is a powerful thing. I don't know that most people realise how precious the freedom to be an idiot in public is. I just wish more people were thoughtful before they opened their mouths. So, sometime in May I'll be waiting to find out if I am lucky enough to serve on a jury. I just hope that my desire to do my civic duty doesn't disqualify me.

EDIT: I'm not railing agains those with legitimate reasons to be excused. I'm talking about people that just don't want to be inconvienenced and are shirking because of that. Not people that have very real and accepted reasons to say they can't. Cause those people are totally awesome and of the good.

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