Say My Name

Today's song of the day can be found here:
http://www.myspace.com/superchunkmusic
It's a remake of Destiny's Child's "Say My Name." Just open the myspace page and either click on the song or hit the "next" button. A serious must-listen. I love a remake that takes the hook, the chord progression, or the back-beat that made a hit what it was and brings the rest of the song in line with that core of pop-goodness.

And sweet mammy-jammies, hot off the presses: http://www.myspace.com/fun

Wow. My world just got rocked- though I forgot my headphones at home so I can't even listen to their demo song. For those of you who don't recognize the momentous occasion that is the above myspace page, it's a new band featuring Nate from The Format and Andrew from Anathallo. Since The Format broke up this year, God rest their souls, I've been stuck in the first stage of grieving: denial. But, with this new project it looks as though some of the old magic might be back, and yes, they're playing at The Intersection.

Looks like they've got a show in Denver too. Let me know if you're in the area and you'd like to join me for a concert.

Alright, back to business:

The Pronoun Game

We all know that girls are the most conniving, unscrupulous, despicable creatures that have ever walked the earth. The Huns, they were bad. Pol Pot, he wasn't the nicest guy. But girls bring a whole new meaning to the words "guerrilla warfare".

While no known individual has compiled an exhaustive catalog of their crimes against humanity, there are brave individuals in isolated pockets who still writhe valiantly within the ever-manicured grip of feminine tyranny.

Today I'd like to talk about a reconnaissance technique that may one day save your life: a foolproof way to detect and defuse the Geneva-prohibited weapon known only as The Pronoun Game.

1. Notice basic patterns of female speech. Under the overwhelming landslide of shoe-talk, hair-talk, Food Network-talk and scattershot gossip often lies a nugget of information. Obviously, most of the time they're just filling the lines with meaningless babble, but every now and again there are coded battleplans embedded in that hurricane of meaningless dribble.

2. Identify keywords. As long as you're dealing with proper nouns you know the pronoun game isn't being played. Just let the Orlando Bloom, Jennifer Aniston, Rachael Ray, etc. slip by unnoticed, but when she stops name-dropping, perk up your ears. Look for phrases like "a friend from work," "a bunch of people," "a study group," and "several of us."

3. Return fire. Anytime a girl speaks indefinitely about the number of people involved in an event or about the gender of her "friend," "coworker," or "classmate," you can be sure that the number she means is two and the gender is male. So, when you reach this juncture of the conversation, say that you had "made plans with a friend" too, and see how she reacts, or just simply ask for the specifics and see how long she can dance around the facts.

4. Everyone plays. There are no exceptions. No matter the girl, no matter the time or circumstances, they are all experts at The Pronoun Game. Why do you think George Orwell wrote his anti-fascist novel Nineteen Eighty-Four? Where did you think he got the idea of Newspeak?

Knowledge is power. Fight the good fight.

Fun Fact: I've tagged more than one post with the label "sexism."

Career Day

Part of growing up is finding out that most things are trite because they are true. The number one stereotypical "to-do" item on any T.V. show or movie is "pick up the dry-cleaning," and after dropping off my dry-cleaning for the first time ever I totally forgot about it. So, last night I picked up two pairs of pants that had been deserted there for going on two weeks.

T-minus 6 Days 'Til Kids...

This is gonna be quick because I don't have much time, but I wanted to update everyone on how the first week of training at Cheyenne Mountain went.

First of all, they have a sweet alternative to social security called PERA. That's right, I won't be paying ANY social security this year. Pretty nice huh? Instead I contribute to a PERA retirement fund that pays me when I turn 65 regardless of (though in proportion to) how long I've worked, and would pay me sooner if I were to keep teaching in Colorado.

Also, instead of paying a couple hundred dollars a month for health insurance I'll be getting a health savings account through the school. That means that I pay only $30 a month and the school puts $100 (tax free) into my a savings account in my name. As long as I use this account for health-related items they too are tax free. But, if I choose to use the money on something else, I can. All that happens is the money that I want to use gets double-taxed (once for being income and then again for sales tax). So, provided that you're young and haven't spent more than 10 years in the Social Security system all this a pretty good deal.

Now for the fun part: some pictures of my classroom.

Here are my classroom rules. They are all Shakespeare quotations. Just click on the image to make it big enough to read.

And here's a shot of the front of my classroom with my sweet bookshelf border (with about 100 actual titles of great books).
And finally my time-line. At this point it only had Emily Dickinson on it and no actual numbers, but it's progressing.
Those pictures are from last Thursday so I've made some progress since then, I'll be sure to post some more before kids arrive next Monday.

Group Participation: I'm planning on doing a famous quotation every day as a class warm-up, so if you've got a favorite you should post it as a comment. I can use all the help I can get.