Today is Thanksgiving: the ultimate holiday in which our American lineage chose to portray its ideal of white supremecy all over the world, and of course, America itself. Don't get me wrong, I dig getting the week off, but sometimes, it's the principle that counts. Come to think of it now, it's one of the main reasons why I write these "Things I Hate..." essays. It's the principle that counts... Well, I should educate you uneducated people on a tidbit of American History that you may not be aware of.
Poor poor Puritans...the lot of you coming on the Mayflower, then found Squanto, and had a great celebration in Thanksgiving. How story/textbookish... I mean, there really wasn't much difference between a storybook and a textbook by telling people that Thanksgiving was a positive event. Let me explain. First of all, in the 150 or so passengers on the Mayflower, only about 25-30 of them were Puritans, It's a shame really, since the other 100 or so of them were eager entrepreneurs, who were looking for business in dealing with SLAVES. These Pilgrims, with no survival skills whatsoever, robbed Native graves, stole from Native food, and mostly lived on Native charity. Hell, they ate corpses when there was no food left, that's totally disgusting... Now, they found Squanto, who wasn't really a translator, he's as European as Jin is black. He looks Native American, but he's been a slave since he was 9, went around Europe for the next 10 years, and came home at the age of 19. He taught the Puritans to do everything, those sinners, and in turn, to celebrate, they held a feast, in which we're lead to believe was a byproduct of European aid.
We're told that they put on a feast that no Native nor White man had ever seen. Well, duh... The Pilgrims never literally seen the feast, since all the food made was native, as in all American food (note my irony), and the Natives might never seen this feast...it's theoretical... They might have...who knows? The point in, We've gloified Thanksgiving way too much, where we think it's a uniquely American holiday. It is, you can say, but the Native Americans had it before us. (The equinoxial fall harvest)
Wasn't that informative, everyone? That's my two cents for all of you this fine white holiday.
PS. The turkey was great, the ham rocked, and the yams weren't sweet enough. I am grateful for the 30 dollars I made and the 20 I (hopefully) will be making on Sunday.
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GonE
PPS. I NEED ZOMBIE CARDS!!!
And the wind brought Clive @ 1:41 AM
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Friday, November 26, 2004 |
Omeffing, its a 4 day weekend!!!
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My arjun essay (or long rant), whichever you prefer, is a post down. Meanwhile, here's my next rant/essay.
Now, onto the business at hand. Lately, the teachers at our school are becoming increasingly annoying (to say the least). It's come to my attention that the problem doesn't really lie entirely on the student body, but the poor quality of [a part of the] teaching staff and administration. What are students to a school? Bodies? The more students, the more the funding, the more money in our superintendents' pocket? Duh, but aside from the obvious, us students are, at the core, a byproduct of GenX. We are GenX, the new generation. A generation where views have both become less refined yet more sophisticated. More tolerant, yet less open. More accomplished, yet much, much less experienced. [Clive's Note: Less adamant, more vertically challenged.::coughhopkinscough::] In our society of influence, who is there to supply us with knowledge? And furthermore, who affects our future? The answer should be obvious.
Here at Mission, though we are all so (insert sarcasm in the "so") intelligent and talented, some of our teachers are downright incompetent! How many of us sit through the first 5 minutes of class only to feel that we've been there for 50 minutes? Everyone, and if you deny it, you totally deserve the 5.0 that you're getting in you..what... 5 AP classes? We have so many types of teachers at Mission...good ones, bad ones, lazy ones, and fat ones [C/N: Hodin, Underdal, S.Sugden, and Bellotti, respectively.] It's tragic how many a teacher belong to the first group. It just may be that I haven't met every teacher just yet, but I believe it's safe to say that the ones I DO know score perfectly under the category I've placed them in.
Let's begin, shall we? What makes a good teacher? Take your 5 seconds right now to finish thinking about how freaky I am in that I categorize people. Done? Good, 'cuz if you didn't you can bite me. A good teacher is basically 3 very simple things. First, they are dedicated. [I.E. Their own lesson plans; informational, yet un-opinionated; isn't all talk, but can walk the walk.] Second, they listen to the students, if the said students remain reasonable. [I.E. 3 Different people asking the same different 3 different times should be answered, with growing emphasis that it won't be repeated later on. But if the same person asks it 3 different times...Houston, we have a problem...] Finally, the teacher has to respect each student for who they are. [I.E. You wash my hand, I'll wash your's.] A Teacher that fits all 3 of my criteria, Ms. Hodin. Sure she's Parisian, sure she's got a funny accent, sure she's boring when she gets repetitive, but all in all, she's a good teacher. She has her own lesson plans, hell, we used the book as reference material, we took a field trip, and we only took 1 test! She has an inhuman amount of patience, I mean, the woman can stand her own against the might of Angelo Fu... And she's totally open to all ideas, a perfect adult representation of what GenX is all about, change and social reform. Let's move on, I have plenty of room to explain the bad teachers.
Bad teachers are simple. They are basically good teachers, yet trashing [to an extraneous amount] one of my 3 criteria as if it's total BS. As my example, I shall use a much hated teacher: Jerry Underdal. I would have to say he passes the "his own lesson plan" thing. I mean, he may be stupider than two thirds of the student body in terms of knowledge on computers, but he IS dedicated to his job. He IS kind of tolerant, I mean, his daughter's a lesbian and he lives with it fine. I guess I can give him that much also. HOWEVER. This man has NO patience, has almost NO respect for his students, and is completely paranoid. He's also got an insane obsession streak, which drives half of us nuts. I occasionally compare him to George Dubya Bush, in the analogy: Dubya is to the country as Underdal is to the classroom. Both are controlling and draining. [C/N: Pertaining to the draining, Dubya is economically, Jerry is sanity.] He practically drives over my criteria on respect...
Now we come to lazy teachers. Here's the perfect example of lazy, courtesy of Mr. Scott Sugden:
Me: Mr. Sugden, I'm not getting this chapter, some of us are really struggling. Can you go over all the Homework answers with us during the class period instead of giving us a short lecture and 20 minutes to work on our homework?
SS: ::Chuckles:: Why would I want to do that when most of the class is getting all the answers right the first time around? I'd just be wasting my time. Plus, it's too much work, so no. ::looks at me like I'm crazy, shakes his head slightly, aggravating smile, and the chuckling again::.
Well, Scott... I'm trying to guess the reason you became a teacher. It can't possibly be because the pay is good, and judging from your refusal to help a part of the class (20% of the class has a borderline B or below, borderline B meaning anything below 83 percent). I can reasonable say you're not in it for the enjoyment either, since you read football articles when we're doing our homework in our free 15-20 minutes. Come on Scotty, you didn't become a teacher to teach the part of the class that know what's going on, you're here to do the exact opposite! Mr. S. Sugden fails on my criteria of dedication, originality, and that he doesn't listen.
We at last come to the "Fat" teacher quality. This category isn't meant to insult the heavyset teacher, after all, some of them may prove to be good teachers. But by Fat, I meant the self absorbed, simple minded, over-expectant teacher. This category really doesn't need much explanation. Most of us who have been to Hopkins and know who Mr. Walker is already know what kind of teacher I'm talking about. As for the more to-the-topic teacher, I chose Mr. Bellotti. Seniors argue that he's great, sure, that's because he's eccentric and somewhat easy. Somewhat. Mr. Bellotti is egotistical and proud, a bad combination. The people who know his class are fully aware of this because he rants on having been in major motion pictures such as "The Matrix" and "Pirates of the Caribbean." Well, I seriously don't see how he could give up that tempting 6 figure check, unless he was incompetent for the job or otherwise fired. He's simple minded as to believing that simple compliance means we like him. Then there's that overemphasized huge notebook grade... ::coughwalkercough:: Sad to say, there are bound to be this type of teacher at every school... He rolls over 2 of my 3 criteria, the patience and the respect. [C/N: Patience- the whole "rebound" thing; Respect- the singling out of students.]
Even more upsetting than all three of the above combined, is a teacher that stomps on all three criteria. I'm very optimistic and tolerant in this teacher rating kind of thing. I like to believe that no matter how bad a teacher gets, he/she can't possible get a 0/3 on my ratings. Grievously, I've met one such teacher. From the impression and experience she has given me, I do NOT deem this person my teacher, and she will not get the status she deserves in this essay. Her name is navpreet bedi, our current English 10H substitute, filling in for Mrs. Santillan for the next 90 working days. [C/N: No matter how bad a teacher gets, he/she still has a status, therefore, I capitalize his/her name. I'm treating navpreet like arjun: no status, and not a human being, but as an object of, once again, disdain and disgust. She is obviously not using her own lesson plan, as Mrs. Santillan told us that the sub is only going to use her lesson plans. She does NOT listen to the class; rather, she tunes out comments that are against her bias. [C/N: Take Michelle Vu's comments for example, during the class period in which we read the "essay" "By Any Other Name," she deflected all of Michelle's comments on the other possibilities of discrimination while agreeing to all of Justin Hsu's more snide and critical comments. [C/N: I don't mean to insult or offend any student whose name I've mentioned in this entire thing.] Finally, she has NO respect for the class, as shown in her hypocrisy by telling us she will, but condemning us to reporting trivialities, reading a book, for example, has to be reported to her before we can start actually reading it. I have no words left for this, simply stated, bitch.
People, if you seriously finished reading all of the above, I commend you for hearing me out. Jeez, this thing took me 45 minutes to spew out... If you feel strongly about what I've said, positively or negatively, please tell me, IM me, call me, etc. I'm open to all constructive criticism, and laugh at all anonymous flames. Thank you for your time.
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GonE.
PS. Who wants me to print a copy for distribution?
And the wind brought Clive @ 9:20 PM
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Thursday, November 11, 2004 |
OMEFFING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IT FEEL SO GOOD TO BE ONLINE AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The people I love for getting me through Internet Withdrawl Syndrome, further known as IWS:
Helen: for being the first person ho actually tried to help me with my situation and listened to my endless rants. She also supplied me with volume after volume of Bleach and Blade of the Immortal, of which I can't ever thank her enough of. (even though the Bleach vol. 8-15 were bad files...grr...)
David: for reformatting my comp for me, and getting me my comp back, virus free. I have no words. You hella deserve the TapX drink. XD.
Matt: for keeping all my crap for me, I guess, he said he wanted to be in my blog, so here he is! ::cymbols clash::
Tiffany: she doesn't need a reason to be in my blog. She can be here anytime she wants, and if she tells me she doesn't want to be in here, I'll take her out, but till then, she stays! "^_^"
What IWS has shown me:
Well, ever since I survived through IWS (by getting back online) I realize that I'm really fortunate to know what the hell the internet really is and the addictive properties of it. From this day forward, I swear that I will not be overly attached to my computer and will try to do something else other than going online after school. Watching anime for instance, XD.
Omeffing... Now, I must go, and finish returning my computer to the glory it once was...
GonE
And the wind brought Clive @ 7:00 PM
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Sunday, November 07, 2004 |
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