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Now 75% More Matriculated
Nov. 8th, 2005 03:20 pmSo I am having a tiny bit of writers block lately. I don't want to attribute it to anything peculiarly mysterious. As a rule when I have other commitments that require my brainmeats to think and express themselves I run out of steam. But I am in fact a tiny bit thrilled... no maybe more jazzed... that I am blowing my head-load at school instead of on the electrical interwebs.
But now my first semester of school is complete and 3 out of the 4 classes I need have been passed. My lowest mark was 70% and frankly I am glad as I only gave the most symbolic of efforts. I am not one to blame performance on the instructor, I think that's such a common cop-out of responsibility. But this man was really sad and had some serious prejudice towards teaching largely poorer people, young mothers and new Canadians. As the token while middle class gay I took some serious hate at the start. Malcolm X Jr. cooled it soon after he freaked out on me during the beginning of the class.
On one occasion the teacher, who often stands at the front of the class teaching and proselytizing us about how we've screwed up our lives, was on a riff about obesity. And how those of us who choose fast food are fatter and without money. Therefore, in his tiny jaded head, we must all be poor and fat because we choose to eat fast food. Totally avoiding the reality that for a single mother fast food is often one of the few affordable pleasures in an increasingly tiered economy. I express this opinion to a round of applause from my classmates. He stands there and blinks.
Of course that is probably the only example of standing up for the impoverished and challenged in our culture. And it's not all Cable TV Inner City School Movie all the time. I actually really hate being there, there are a lot of idiots, drug dealers, dweeby kids who don't appreciate the chance they've got to try again. They make being classes really difficult and are generally really frustrating. Although looking at the situation sociologically has been like a trip to the Galapagos Islands and I've enjoyed that experience.
My other two classes were mostly without issue and my marks were in the 90s. Computer class was neat because I could use MS Office in my sleep. So I spent most of my time developing a portable platform for bookmarks, email and IM using Firefox and the various extensions and web services it is compatible with. For those of you looking to do the same at your place of occupation might I suggest the following:
I rocked the English class. My teacher is a sweetheart who looks kinda like Mimi from the Drew Carrey Show if she had some sort of angelic twin. She gave me really good marks and basically waved me through the class because she knows I can some day write make pretty words on the papers. So today I find myself chilling out before I go to work. It is a national audit day at Local Unionized Franchise of a Larger National Chain so I expect my managers to be harshing on the security super muchly so. I will wash and iron my shirt EXTRA hard this evening, smile often, check all credit card signatures and direct customers to the financial products of Larger National Chain Bank at all opportunities. Luckily lots of my shift will be spent counting money and bitching about others in the cash office, away from auditors.
Next up tomorrow is my first day of my last class. I have but one class, Grade 12 English, to complete high school and get the heck on with my life. I still haven't made that step into the adult world and am frankly a little be cagey about the concept of a real career decision. I am starting to humour the idea of finding a soul less career that offers me untold riches. I'm brainy enough to rock the MBA or something. Although I suppose if cash is a concern it's likely motivation and effort are the deciding factors. The fickle job market can only do so much damage.
But now my first semester of school is complete and 3 out of the 4 classes I need have been passed. My lowest mark was 70% and frankly I am glad as I only gave the most symbolic of efforts. I am not one to blame performance on the instructor, I think that's such a common cop-out of responsibility. But this man was really sad and had some serious prejudice towards teaching largely poorer people, young mothers and new Canadians. As the token while middle class gay I took some serious hate at the start. Malcolm X Jr. cooled it soon after he freaked out on me during the beginning of the class.
On one occasion the teacher, who often stands at the front of the class teaching and proselytizing us about how we've screwed up our lives, was on a riff about obesity. And how those of us who choose fast food are fatter and without money. Therefore, in his tiny jaded head, we must all be poor and fat because we choose to eat fast food. Totally avoiding the reality that for a single mother fast food is often one of the few affordable pleasures in an increasingly tiered economy. I express this opinion to a round of applause from my classmates. He stands there and blinks.
Of course that is probably the only example of standing up for the impoverished and challenged in our culture. And it's not all Cable TV Inner City School Movie all the time. I actually really hate being there, there are a lot of idiots, drug dealers, dweeby kids who don't appreciate the chance they've got to try again. They make being classes really difficult and are generally really frustrating. Although looking at the situation sociologically has been like a trip to the Galapagos Islands and I've enjoyed that experience.
My other two classes were mostly without issue and my marks were in the 90s. Computer class was neat because I could use MS Office in my sleep. So I spent most of my time developing a portable platform for bookmarks, email and IM using Firefox and the various extensions and web services it is compatible with. For those of you looking to do the same at your place of occupation might I suggest the following:
- Webaim - A web-based AOL Instant Messenger service that is pretty usable. The interface doesn't try to mock an application interface and works well at what it prescribes to do on the platform it was programmed for. The $3.95/mo for premium access is worth it if you like to use AIM from work but access is blocked.
- GMail notifier - I check my gmail from home via POP but that's not a practical option when I'm out and about. So I just use the fairly well thought out Google Mail web interface. This little Firefox extension simply notifies me of new messages. Pretty simple but effective.
- Del.icio.us - If you're not using del.icio.us yet you will be soon. It's a social bookmarking site that helps you to organize your bookmarks or favourites by keywords. It will also syndicate them as an RSS feed meaning you can synchronize your bookmarks between locations reliably with standard conventions. Fundamentally speaking it means you can organize, share and bring your bookmarks with you anywhere. The concept of social bookmarking is probably one of the few applications for the web of late that solicits the "duh, geez obvious!" reaction.
- Foxylicious - A Firefox extension that syncronizes your bookmarks with del.icio.us along with extended information. Remember kids describe everything if you want to find it later! Computers are only getting more semantic when it comes to searching. This is one of the few extensions I used that was kinda jinky. It has some bugs like you have to enter your user name and password, press cancel, go back to the extension preferences then update your bookmarks. But once that's out of the way it does what it prescribes to do. If the built-in live bookmarking in Firefox wasn't similarly jinky I'd have just used it. But I like to organize my information spatially as well as by context so it's newsfeed style display doesn't work for me.
I rocked the English class. My teacher is a sweetheart who looks kinda like Mimi from the Drew Carrey Show if she had some sort of angelic twin. She gave me really good marks and basically waved me through the class because she knows I can some day write make pretty words on the papers. So today I find myself chilling out before I go to work. It is a national audit day at Local Unionized Franchise of a Larger National Chain so I expect my managers to be harshing on the security super muchly so. I will wash and iron my shirt EXTRA hard this evening, smile often, check all credit card signatures and direct customers to the financial products of Larger National Chain Bank at all opportunities. Luckily lots of my shift will be spent counting money and bitching about others in the cash office, away from auditors.
Next up tomorrow is my first day of my last class. I have but one class, Grade 12 English, to complete high school and get the heck on with my life. I still haven't made that step into the adult world and am frankly a little be cagey about the concept of a real career decision. I am starting to humour the idea of finding a soul less career that offers me untold riches. I'm brainy enough to rock the MBA or something. Although I suppose if cash is a concern it's likely motivation and effort are the deciding factors. The fickle job market can only do so much damage.
