Thursday, February 21, 2008

I'm on a hunt- A quest really- to find a few things.

1) The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
2) My burberry glasses
3) Crack the case- nevermind, thank you chris
4) White Squall
4) My old blue cell phone
5) Holy crap, there's two number fours.
6) My favorite 2nd favorite sunglasses, my visor, my right sailing glove, 40 shackles and about 60 billion pins. ( check lakes and oceans. )
7)That pink bra
8) My ipod wall charger
9) The 30,000 socks my dryer ate
10) Those blue adidas flip flops ( beach )


...to be continued

Monday, February 18, 2008

Don't read this. It's not a blog

Ok. So i save important things in like 50 billion places so that when i'm not at my computer i can still work on them/print them/find them. I need to finish this up and polish it up tomorrow morning during my 8am, and don't know where my flash drive is, therefor i'm emailing it to myself twice and throwing it up here just to be sure. i repeat: DON"T FREAKIN READ>>> it's not interesting or a good representation of my writing ability. I'll post a real blog later.



Kindergarten: The word immediately brings to mind clumsy construction paper cutouts and the smell of Elmer’s glue. For just a second you are transported to a world where there is play-dough perpetually under your fingernails and permanent smelly marker stains on your desk. Success and happiness are defined with a bright sticker on a worksheet or extended recess. A fresh box of crayons is the ultimate reward and the golden rule is law. Unfortunately, due to the simple uniformity of standardized tests and pressure from new academic standards, your memories of kindergarten may be radically different from your children’s memories. In the 2003 article Why is Kindergarten an Endangered Species?, Kathy Morris and Linda Plevyak investigate the changes that have taken place in the last couple of decades that have our kindergartener’s concerned with memorizing “sight” words and learning subtraction.
The article explains that ever since that fateful day when standardized test scores were used not as broad generalizations of our youth but as a tool for measuring absolute academic standards, teachers have been feeling the “backward domino effect”. First and second grade teachers nationwide began to feel pressure to cover higher level material in order for students to score higher on the third grade standardized achievement test, thus displacing the strain onto kindergarten teachers. And why shouldn’t they feel pressure? In the long run it’s these scores that determine how much money is coming to the school. As the “jam as much as we can, as fast as we can” mentality infects elementary schools nationwide, kindergarten teachers are left wondering if four and five year olds should really be able to master the sight-word recognition, phonics, and math skills that used to be covered in first grade.
Teachers are not the only ones on the burner, because in recent years the heat has been turned up on parents. According to the article, parents that observed modern kindergarten programs often left feeling as if their child was “not ready” for this warped kind of primary education. However, instead of questioning the establishment and the practices thereof, the parents would be left deliberating whether or not to wait another year or just enroll in an “academic preschool”. The result was crops of kindergarteners that were older, more socially mature, taller, heavier, and inevitably, bored. The article states that by third grade there is very little evidence to suggest that the extra year at home “prepping” for kindergarten had any positive benefit to the cognitive development of the child. On the contrary, these “super kindergarteners” were significantly more likely to engage in dangerous sexual and alcohol related behaviors in later years.
School districts nationwide have enormous amounts or pressure to define “kindergarten readiness”. In the past few decades the focus has changed from advancing the social, emotional, and cognitive development, in order to better ready a child for elementary school to a distorted system that revolves around teaching to the test and

...with free nights and weekends

It's the most amazing thing; how the very moment we hang up I have this overwhelming urge to call you back for no reason at all
Fun fact of the day:


The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.


Good. sounds like IU is full of bright people.


Friday, February 15, 2008

HAH

This seen when stumbling today:

Cathy: America's Sweat-heart




Cathy has been in the funny pages for over 25 years. I don't know if she'll ever fit into that stupid bikini, and I don't really care. What I'm possessed by is just how much she sweats. Frankly, I'm worried about her.
Whenever I happen to see a Cathy strip in the paper, she's not just sweating, she is projectile sweating. Beads of perspiration are literally launching themselves off of her head like tiny suicide jumpers. I'm convinced she has some sort of disorder. It is not normal for one to be sweatier than Oprah's thong on a daily basis.
I looked up "heavy sweating" on WebMD and what Cathy has is a condition called "hyperhidrosis." According to this medical website: "If you find yourself sweating all the time, and all over -- not just on your palms, soles, and underarms -- it may be a sign of a serious illness like tuberculosis, some kind of cancer, or thyroid disease. Talk to a doctor immediately. "
HOLY CRAP, CATHY! Put down that pint of Haagen Dazs and get your soggy ass to an emergency room!
I was curious as to just how much good ol' "Cath" was sweating it up, so I bought one of her compilation books and worked up some statistics.

The book contained 330 comic strips. 312 were 4-panel weekday strips, and 18 were full-page Sunday strips. Of the 312 daily strips, Cathy sweated in at least 1 panel 124 times! Wow. On any weekday there is a 39.7% chance Cathy will sweat like a beast. Cathy, seriously. The hospital. Go.

Sundays are usually associated with relaxation. Not for Cathy the Human Sweat Shop. With the additional panels in a Sunday comic, the chances of Cathy getting wet rise dramatically. Of the 18 Sunday comics I checked, she turned on the waterworks 12 times, for a whopping total of 66.7%.

"But Steve, doesn't she sweat more in some strips than others?" Why, yes. She does! Above is a breakdown of how many panels in a weekday strip Cathy will sweat (in those strips where sweating occurs.)
The majority of the time it's only in 1 panel, but on the rarest of occasions she will actually be sweating in ALL OF THEM. In the competitive world of Watching Cathy Sweat, this is the grand slam. It's the holy grail. And when it happens, I can't help but think to myself, "Wow, it's gonna be a great day."
Oh, and "Cathy's got tuberculosis and now she's gonna die."
- the sneeze.com
As long as we're talking about comics, I have a beef with family circus. The kids never get older or smarter, and nothing of substance ever hits the strip.Really though, when the 50th aniversery rolled around last year all i could think was "Family circus: wasting a fantastical amount of ink for half a decade". I mean it would be a lot more interesting if when the kid with creepy hair asked his dike-ish mom "where do babies come from" she replied with " Beats me. Your adopted" insted of the sickeningly conservative "babies are presents delivered by angels to mommies and daddies everywhere." And really, i'm sure i would become an avid reader if they went through a nasty divorce or one of the ugly little kids rebeled.
"mommy, why does ( insert name of kid with creepy hair) have cuts on his wrists?" "because mommy and daddy won't let him have a boyfriend sweetheart"
This is a call to action! Never again must we expend precious energy rolling our eyes at the watered down religious witisisms that infect the lower corner of the comics page. I chose the work "infect" because it seems to have ruined marmaduke of the years, along with mary worth and whatever other shortlived comics reside in the bottom fifth of the page. I mean, Rhymes with Orange had a llot of potential, but did it have the power and maturity ( 3 months compared to the 50 yrs of family circus) to survive the vicious epidemic that was ravaging the bottom of the paper? I think not, and now you'll notice it has perished all together. For the sake of comics everwhere we must put a stop to somber comics! I don't want to read about life lessons, i want to laugh damnit, and Family circus has stolen this simple pleasure from americans everywhere. Something must be done.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

hey you. and you and you

i really hope everyone has at least a few people that can make them feel like they're important. among other things. see below:
relevant
gorgeous
unforgettable
funny
loved
thought-of
missed
crazy................ to the You's that make my world spin, i love you. you have carried me through everything and you should know that i will do anything for you, just say the word. I'll never know what you see in me but i only hope that someday i can make some fraction of the impact to you that you have made in my life. when you
answer your phone no matter what time
sing to me
talk about nothing for hours
are silent
are over protecive
ask for help
give advise
drag me kicking and screaming through fast dreams
hold my hair back when i'm sick
pick me up when i'm scared and stranded
include me in your family
give me your toothbrush
look out for me
trust me
bring by soup when i'm sick
remember the little things
know me better than i know myself............ i absolutely melt.

stumble upon..... <3

Monday, February 11, 2008

please, stay off the tracks.

I dreamed a train was created
for those with our hearts in far away places
the conductor
he lifs his hat and smiles a broken smile
but by then you've signed at the x
i give him 10 of my days, just peeled them off
my old age not yet lived
-thats what made the train run, you see-
what good were they to me anyway with out you here
and the Stealer of Days shouted all aboard

that's the problem with girls like me
we simply tear off pieces of our heart and wrap them in yellow paper
then give the pieces to any passing stranger with
laughing eyes and a forgettable smile
but when they leave and forget
the pieces go missing-lost
but not forgotten
remembered but not loved

so i'm afraid i'll be taking the train tonight
to visit the piece i gave you
I dream that soon the headlines will read
"Romatics die younger than ever before"
you see the train becomes our home and the conductor our friend
and we are a careless generation
we spend the weeks in stations
trading our hours 10 10 10 10
all addicted to that hiss of stream

at night we visit all of the pieces we carelessly gave away
and wonder how it would have been if we had kept them

The side effects of this fantasic addiction
infect us when it storms
Now i only sleep when it's raining because the train wont come
if the tracks are wet
and baby it's three Am and i'm lonely
the rains comming down
the train's not comming
and i'm sick of blaming you

take three

I just want to get it on the table right now that there were many things that i should have done for tomorrow that i completely neglected to do. I feel guilty but there's no point in getting worked up about it, am I right?

As far as sharing any thoughts on today, i would like to point out how not once, but twice today i got hell for using a baby sock to encase my 3rdgen Nano. Really people?! Really? it's the perfect size, and to be quite frank i just didn't feel the need to drop 30 bucks on a stupis piece of rubber.

More tomorrow....i just can't get used to this. I have nothng to say, i guess i'm kind of in a crappy mood.....as you can tell by my above ramblings i'm sort of scatter brained and jut a tad pissy. ( On that note, i did pass a drug test today...for someone else. good thing we're friends, girl.) How do i post pictures on here? And why won't the spell check icon work? jfkdajfkl;jfdkl;jakfldjkslafjkdls Goodnight.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

round two- FIGHT

Dear Diary,
Honest to God, when i typed "round two" all i could here was that ominous voice that booms out of you tv when you're playing old school teken... he says "round two....FIGHT" and suddenly your controller is un-frozen and eddy starts thowing air punches and you're like "FUCK this is it!".....that last run-on sentence was completely lost on anyone who never played teken as a kid...I guess you could relate it to how when you here some one yell "STOP" all you can think is "collaborate and listen"

So. Ho humm what to talk about. Well tonight i was super depressed (we'll talk about why in a bit) so i went to my friend Ryans house and played with our friends' (mikey and steph) new pitbull puppy, and good god is he adorable. Seriously, i was rediculously bummed out and then WHAM we played and he fell asleep in my hand. Absolutley adorable.

SO here's the deal, diary. [lemmie just get this on the table right now, before this relationship goes any further, diary, anything i say doesn't leave this blog. do we understand each other? Secrets are secrets. I mean, you wouldn't want me "sharing with the class" your innate self-esteem issues due to having shitty fonts, right?] Once upon a time there was a girl. She's flighty and jaded and a hopeless romantic all at once. Go figure. And there's this boy. He's handsome and athletic and likes fast cars almost as much as she does. She's known him for years but only the past year or so have they hung out. At one point or another he got this crazy idea in his head that he was absolutely crazy about her. [ No, i know, I have no idea what he was thinking] Well for the longest time she tried to convince him that she was a terrible person and didnt possibly, couldn't possibly let him take her out, date her, etc. Although those things are true, the real honest to god truth is that she was scared; scared of letting go of an old relationship, scared of getting hurt, scared of getting attached, scared of letting it turn into a relationship that as bad for her i.e. friends with benifits (never ever ever EVER again.) , juts scared. [blahblahblah, cliche' but fuck you, diary, cause i'm trying to tell a story.] Well girl feels bad for being such a jerk to boy, but knows its for the best. After all, he'll get over her and find another girl who's worth his effort. Time passes. Girl thinks about boy a lot, feels uneasy about her origional decision. After all. He makes her laugh, they always have a blast, he's crazy handsome, he brought her flowers (TWICE)....MOre time passes. Boy leaves. Boy gets hurt, Girl is veryveryvery concerned. Boy comes home to recover, but girl can only stop over once or twice. (She's busy, ok? still...) Boy leaves. This girl, its the weirdest thing, she just gives up fighting it. They start to talk alot more and she feels like she can tell him anything. But then....the boy starts to explain ( in the most exquisit, perfect details) how he is still head-over-heals for this girl.

And insted of flipping out and looking for excuses why it couldn't work, she falls. Oh, did she fall. She fell for the way he would laugh at her voice-mails, the way he said her name, the way he could talk her from angry tears into laughter. She fell for the way he was so competitive, the way he had a passion that was so similar to hers, the way he said "I miss you" every time they talked, the way he called her every night for no reason at all, the way she hung on to the fact that she would try and fight sleep just to hear him on the other line. She fell.

and then suddenly he was comming home just to see her, and oh my gosh! what is she going to do with her hair? what exactly did he say about those eyelashes? Should she change her clothes? dress up? dress down? .....panic sets in...
what if he changes his mind? its possible, probable even....and really, wouldn't that be ironic? After he chases her for..how long? She finally falls, he finally wins, and that was it? the chase was all he ever wanted?

the weekend was a whirlwind of crappy nicholas cage dialogue and kissing and goofing around and grandparents and firetrucks- it was awesome. but not quite what she expected. She's afraid he's done, that it really was the chase he wanted after all, or that she looks different or acted different than he expected. So the boy leaves and the girl trys not to sniff (she's bummed) he won't be comming home anytime soon and visiting sounds like an inconvenience for him. She had just started to believe all those things he said, but then it feels like he doesn't anymore.

Boy calls girl. He doesn't say " I miss you."

Girl sighs.

Honestly i haven't heard the rest of the story yet ( if there is more), but gimme some feedback. 'Cause diaryblogjournal, i don't know how this ends but i'm sure you have some ideas.
Goin to bed in a bit, i'm going to put away some laundry and facebook real quick, then head to bed. Oh, and call matt back, i blew him off when chris called. ( sorry kid. i know your just trying to be that brother i need so much, but on nights like this i can't talk to you about things, ok?)
take it easy diary.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Dear diary?

This is bizzarre. I'm not sure who to write to. I suppose this was always an issue for me as a kid, i never was the girl with the diary. Mind you, i would always try to start one, but i felt that in order for the reader to really see what i was like i had to first tell me whole life story. Thus i was bored with the process before i even got to age 11. If i had a nickle for every 6 page diary in my closet...
However. I'm going to give this a shot.

I made a discovery today. As you all well know (who am i talking to??) I have a knee issues. Which really isn't very fair, i mean look at how i've taken care of them as they carried me from class to class and coast to coast. Those disobediant wrecks. In any event- by the end of the day today they were quite sore, and up until about forty minuets ago I was limping around like some deranged pirate. And thats when my life changed. Mom ( what a dear) handed me a glorious tube of BIOfreeze. Ok, i was skeptical. Really, what good could some blue topical crap POSSIBLY do for me? Holy. Amazing. Batman. It actually worked! Actually i'm sure they're still sore, but it feels like......you know that freezing sensation when you get toothpaste in your eye? that's how my knees feel. Like i want to take a bath in this stuff, it's SO sweet.

well um.. i dont really know what else to say.