The Teacher From the Black Lagoon

8:55pm: CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!
I hate to say this, and I never thought I would, but LJ has just turned to crap with a capital "C". All I ever read on here anymore is lists, lists, and more lists of extremely boring facts about people. And also these stupid little games with LJ screennames. ORRRR, listening to people have a little bitchfest--yeah, you heard me right--I said bitchfest. Stop the crap, I say! It's time to start something new. I just don't know what it would be. It's almost the new year so it's definitely time to make changes. Maybe no one can speak for a week on here about love found or love lost. Maybe we all speak in pirate tongue (not that I know how, arrrrr). Where's the conversations?

I miss old LJ...

5:25pm: It's good to be back, my old friend LJ
Wow, I haven't posted on LJ in a long time. I've got nothing interesting to say, but I thought if I would update, then maybe some of my old LJ friends might comment me. I'd love to hear from you...

9:45pm: WARNING--COPY OF XANGA POST!
AS POSTED ON XANGA.....

I'm taking a break from my addiction to Big Brother and the live feed updates on the Internet. I've been glued to either my computer or the TV for a week now and it has to stop!

WARNING--VERY LONG POST AHEAD!

I read journal entries of my students, former students, and friends of students and sometimes their entries really sadden me--especially the girls' entries. So often I read about their longing to have a "special someone" in there lives and it sounds as though it's a constant strain on their soul. Over the many years I've been a high school teacher, I've heard the sad pleas from girls for a boyfriend to love and one to love them. I've also known so many girls that measure their worth by either the possession of, or lack of, a boyfriend. I've seen girls that would bounce from boy to boy to boy and never be without a boyfriend in their life. It has always seemed that so many of these girls placed their self-esteem in the hands of boys. All these years I have wondered why. Of course, I don't have an answer. What I do know, and have always known, is that boyfriends will come and boyfriends will go, but there is nothing greater than a best girl friend; for they last a lifetime. It breaks my heart to hear these passioned statements about the need for love--these pleas come from girls who are 14, 15, 16, 17, or 18 years old. What has society done to our girls that makes them think that boyfriends are THE most important thing that is needed in our daughters lives? I understand completely the need to have someone in our lives to care about us and to love us. That is why we have our family and friends. In these teen years, yes 14-17 year olds are still teens, the L word should never be spoken toward a boyfriend. A girl, almost a woman, should not toss her heart around so lightly at such a young age. Your heart is your MOST precious possession and should be saved for that person that will be your life-long partner. You should never give it freely to some young boy who can barely shave yet. I won't even get into the whole subject of physical closeness. If I don't think girls should be giving their heart, I DEFINITELY don't think they should be giving that "other" precious possession! While our religious factions certainly tell us this is wrong, I feel it's wrong for other reasons as well. That is THE one thing that you give that you can never take back. I can PROMISE you that it is the one thing in your life you will never forget either--good or bad! It's a 50/50 chance either way. Do you really want to roll those dice?

I truly think the answer to my "why" questions lies with our society. I truly believe that the media--TV, movies, magazines, etc.--have taught us over the years that the boyfriend is what all girls need to make their life perfect. Over the years, I've seen all of these "cutest couple" couples that all of the girls, and maybe even some boys, envied because they looked so perfect together and it seemed like that was what every girl wanted to have in their lives. I've seen girls that were willing to sacrifice their values, morals, and virginity just to have a boyfriend. I've heard stories of what girls were willing to do with boys that would make their mothers sick, all for the sake of having a boyfriend. What will these girls think of themselves when they are 40 or 50 years old? I could tell them but they wouldn't believe me. I guess they will find out on their own one day.

I know that not all girls are like that and many of these girls are extreme situations. In my non-professional psychologist opinion, I believe that the girls that go to extreme measures are looking for something much deeper than just a boyfriend. Something they probably have not gotten elsewhere in their lives.

What's the solution? As stated earlier, I certainly don't have all the answers. What I think is that we, myself included, need to do a better job in teaching our daughters what the TRUE value in life is. We need to teach our daughters that they need to nurture and grow their soul first. Become a PERSON first. Learn to love things other than boys first. Learn how to be a good friend first (I'll post on that one some other time!). Learn what their values are first. Discover what they want to be and who they want to be first. Learn to love themselves first.

Once our young women grow themselves to completion, then love will come. I truly believe that once a person has learned to love their own self completely, then they will be open for others to love them. How can others love us if we don't love ourselves?

There is no time line for this to happen. It will happen when it happens. Until then, explore other things in life and stop trying to make love happen. There is sooooooooo much more going on in this wonderful, wonderful world that God has given us that we can learn about. Throw yourself into projects that will improve mankind. Volunteer for a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen. Collect items from friends and family for a battered women's shelter. Visit residents in a nursing home (you'd be surprised how much you will love that!). Have a fundraiser with your friends for a worthy organization. Read. Go on short trips and learn about God's land.

Stop obsessing about having a boyfriend. Boyfriends most often happen when you weren't looking and were focusing your attention on something else!

IS ANYONE STILL READING THIS

8:36pm: Random...

Well, I haven't been here in about 3,000 days. Apparently alot has happened to my fine young scholarly students since. To repeat Elizabeth's daily comments, I'm BORED! So, I thought I would give you something new to read. I love to post random thoughts, so here goes:

• Just got back from Orlando with Hallie for FBLA Conference. Gooooood times we had!
• Elizabeth, I'm so sorry you are so bored--wish I could entertain you!
• My mom's in the hospital in Morrilton. Wish she weren't. Appreciate your parents while they are young and healthy.
• Mary Kathryn, sorry about chemistry & scholarship. Hope you have a back-up plan.
• Catherine, I like looking at your Xanga pages--especially the pics. Just remember, I do know how to save those to re-use at an unexpected time...
• Who says teachers get three months off in the summer? So far I think I've had exactly three days to call my own since school was out. SUX!
• Spencer has been freed from his sentence. If you don't know, don't ask.
• I kinda miss all my students and look forward to going back to school. Don't throw any virtual tomatoes at me.
• Candace--PLEASE get over David. I'm begging you, for the love of God, PPPPLLLEEEAAASSEEEE!!!! You can do sooooo much better.
• I hate it when I read such depressing comments from you guys about how much you hate your life. What's so terrible about it? You've got a roof over your head, food on the table and most likely a family and friends that love you dearly. Not to mention, cars, cell phones, TV's, computers, stereos (are they still called that?), video game systems, and every other item imaginable. What more do you need as a teenager? Is it the love of a boyfriend? If so, it ain't all it's cracked up to be. Read posts from those who have them. Most of the time they are in some state of dispair.
• I sound like your mothers.
• I wish some of you would not use the "F" word so much although I can read past it. (See item above)
• For those of you working crappy jobs, just remember, the key to escaping that type of job is a good education! Besides, if you don't do those jobs, who will??? I need my McDonald's workers so I can get my #2 meal fix.
• Landon, thanks for bringing me my book.
• Where is Nicole?
• I've got to go get groceries. Bye.
  

3:13pm: Blllleeeehhhhh...

• I am posting with nothing important to say
• I feel like I've missed 4,232 days this year
• I'm sure many of you wish I would miss another 2,899 more
• I am really behind in my classes
• People with whiney voices drive me nuts!
• I have to teach tonight and I'm really sick of night classes
• Girls should not be at boys' houses when their parent isn't home (especially my home!)
• I hate it when all of my teacher friends are gone from school. (Yeah, I have one or two friends.)
• I love it when the Cowboys win!
• There are 15 days until Christmas vacation
• I haven't bought any presents yet.
• I haven't put my Christmas tree up yet.
• I could be turning into a Scrooge
• I see wierd people
• This list is over.

3:11pm: What a week!

Here goes my unconnected thoughts:

I know I always feel the need to be interesting and witty on LJ.

I know that I am most likely not.

I know that I may actually be turning into Satan.

I know it's not a very good feeling.

I know I have nothing fun to do this weekend.

I know that you probably should never get married, because if it ends in divorce, the divorce never ends. (huh?)

I know that I saw some scary things at the Ms. Man Pageant yesterday.

I know I love this weather. (Payton, notice the spelling of that last word!)

I know I'm ready for my four days in New Orleans next week.

I know ya'll will miss me.

I know I'm going to find the meanest teacher to be your sub.

I know that because I am SATAN!

I know it's Friday and 3:15.

I know I'm outta here.

 

Good weekend to all!

 

2:51pm: Saying for today--Left is Right.

Thoughts for today:

I have to vote today--I don't want to stand in line!
Nikki Knight is very loud.
I have a headache.
I work too hard.
Andrew drives me krazy!
I've got nothing important or profound to say.

2:42pm:

2:13pm:

Ringrazi Il Dio it's Venerdì. Gli allievi e gli insegnanti stanno guidandolo pazzesco!

Looky, Looky I can now speak Italian!

Life is so cool.

2:56pm: Things I know:
I know that stress sux!
I know that Elizabeth takes awesome pix--especially the ones of my pets.
I know that Rachel plays with Barbies!
I know that some teachers make no sense

(pause in this train of thought)

Me in the hallway: Do we have a pep rally today?
Teacher in the hallway: No, but we are doing the ballots during English.
Me in the hallway: ????????????

Back to things I know:

I know that alot of students are joining FBLA
I know that I'm really happy about that!
I know that Ms. Meriweather took the squeak out of my classroom door.
I know I'm not happy about that.
I know that I've had 4,000,982 interuptions today.
I know that ya'll will miss me Monday and Tuesday.
I know that we need french fries at lunch!
I know that it's Friday and I'm outta here!!!!!

2:51pm:

I haven't written in my journal in four months. So why am I writing today???? Because it's Saturday, and while all you students are enjoying a great day off from school, I'm here in my classroom waiting until the computer guy fixes our server. I think he has totally gakked it up!

Have you ever talked to a true computer nerd? Here's how a recent conversation went:

Me: "How's going in here?"

CN: "Well, I just migrated your files to the new server and now I think they are hosed." (Yeah, he used the word hosed!)

Me: "What happened?" (Never ask a computer nerd this question!)

CN: "During the migration process, the DS transfer got hung up and now I can't find your Directory Services.

I won't continue on with this conversation because he started talking about things like NICI, partitions, volumes, NDS, NLDAP, and so on.....

It has all gone downhill since! I would love to be snoozing on my couch right now, but NO! Hope you all appreciate the sacrifices I make for your school.

(I slowly make my ascent to sainthood)

 

3:37pm: WHY????

So tell me why, when I have to get on to a student, they take it sooooo personally and think that because I'm cool and all (those are ya'lls words, not mine) that I shouldn't get on to them.

I am making a declaration from hither to yon: if I see that you are doing something you shouldn't be, or you are somewhere you aren't supposed to be, or you aren't somewhere you should be, YES, I will have a "discussion" with you. Does that mean I'm a b****? Does that mean I hate you? Does that mean that I have PMS? Does that mean that you should sull up and pout? The answer is "yes" to the first and "no" to the rest.

Remember, even though I may joke around with you, I am still a teacher first and with that job comes responsibilities. Responsibilities like making sure students follow the rules. Not one student in this entire school is there an exception for. I expect the same for ALL students.

New day, same old conversations:

Person in the hallway: "Is the server fixed yet?"

Me: "Yes, but you can't do anything on it."

Person in the hallway: "Why not?"

Me: "Because the processor is overclocked, the power supply should have been a 300 watt supply instead of a 230 watt, the switches had wires which got crossed over and had to be rewired, the httplib.nlm and http.nlm files are causing the server to crash every five minutes, and the backup exec files need to be unloaded, tested, and reloaded.

Person in the hallway: "I didn't understand anything you just said."

Me: "What else is new? Now if I had been able to be in my office working on this problem instead of spending five minutes explaining something to you that you will never understand, the problem might have been fixed by now."

Person in the hallway slinks away with their head scraping the floor.

I'm through. Have a nice weekend and a Happy Easter. For those who go to church, pray for me. Pray that I will be granted forgiveness, patience, and a little bit of kindness towards others.

3:31pm: I really HATE COMPUTERS!

OH MY GAWWWWWWWWWWWW! I'm really ready to kill!!!! I just got through totally venting and then lost everything I had written!!!! I really hate computers!!! I can't take any more. I have spent this entire day working on equipment and it doesn't work any better now than it did before. Nothing in this stinkin' room works--not the server, not the network, not the internet, nothing, nothing, nothing! I really want to damage something. I really figure that people in the technology field have a high rate of either drug addiction, alcoholism, severe depression, or suicidal tendencies. I'm really considering taking up all of the aforementioned! So if I come to school tomorrow drunk, high, depressed and my wrists are wrapped in bandages, you will know that I have truly lost it! Just kidding, REALLY! (Did I ever have "it", and what is "it" anyway?)

If anyone ever suggests to you that you should go into the technology field, tell them to take a giant leap off the highest building--not in Bigelow but in a city where there are actually really tall buildings!

And did I mention that people won't quit calling me???? My phone rings 200 times a day.

Person on phone: "our server is down"

Me: "No kidding"

Person on phone: "Do you know when it will be fixed?"

Me: "yes. When you quit calling me every five minutes and give me time to work on it!"

"RRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPP"

Me ripping the phone line out of the wall and strangling myself with the phone cord!

Man, I feel much better now! I think I'll go home and think.

9:15am: The party's over
Now that prom is over, looks like it's back to work for all of us. It looked like everyone was having a good time at prom. (some might have been having a little too much fun!) All of the girls looked beautiful, and the guys were dashing in their tuxes. If you guys want to see the pictures I took at prom, go to our school's website and you can download them. The address is: http://bigelow.afsc.k12.ar.us

Also, sometime this week, I will replay the slide show during lunch for anyone who wants to see it.

Glad everyone made it home safely. It always worries me this time of year, when students feel the need to over-imbibe. (If you don't know what that word means, look it up) I'm always afraid of getting a phone call on Sunday afternoon informing me that some student didn't make it home ok. Some of you students really need to be more careful about that whole drinking and driving thing. Can we all say "designated driver" together as a class? Good. Now remember it!

9:38am: Students who are losers....
There seems to be an epidemic in this school that is rapidly spreading in my class. That epidemic is called "senioritis". It is a very serious and deadly disease that causes students to become lifeless, useless, and seriously stupid. When a student becomes infected, they can no longer respect authority and they no longer want to do any work in their class. It is a very sad disease, indeed. It resembles spring fever and usually occurs the first week after spring break. Not all students become infected, thank goodness. Another symptom of this illness is lack of love for their teachers. Especially the teachers who do ssssoooooooooo much for their students. I assume this occurs because of great memory loss. I truly hope it passes soon, because I really can't take much more of the whining and complaining!!!!

On another thought, any students with the initials MKA and GR are annoying and generally obnoxious. I feel sorry for anyone who has to be around people with these initials. They are demons in a human body.

Have a nice day.

2:39pm: School is dull. No wonder ya'll hate it so much. I even bore myself at school. Thank goodness for computers.

Today's events:

1st period--Presentations. Some were good, some kinda, well, YYYAAAWWWNNN....

2nd period--sometimes ya'll bore me. No offense. Nothing interesting happened in class. Although it appears Greg skipped again today since I saw that he posted to LJ today.

3rd period--remember when I used to let you do fun things like get on the Internet? Don't you wish you still could?

6th period--Morgan came to school and we did her taxes, then made fun of all of you in class!!!! JK.

7th period--BORING!

Ya'll have got to do something interesting!

11:08am: Welcome Back to the Darkside!!!!
I hope all you kiddos had a good SB. By reading some of your LJ posts, some did and some really had a terrible week. I won't bore you with my dull happenings. My week was so dull, I was ready to get back to school. See how fun adulthood is??? The best part of this time of year is that the days start ticking down until SUMMER!!!!!!! 64 DAYS left!!!!!!!!!!!

10:17am: What a weekend!!!
Did everyone have a good weekend???? I had the privilege of going to our boys & girls BB game. They were all truly awesome! I'm so proud of our teams. Looks like our girls will go to state this year. YEA!!! In case ya'll don't know, our girls haven't been to state since 1989--15 years. Of course, I won't brag that it was my "guy friend" that took them there. Anyway, way to go girls! The rest of my weekend was pathetic. I laid up on the couch all day Sunday with a deadly disease. Hope ya'll don't catch it. Always remember to be nice to your sickly teachers....

10:39am: Whacky Classes
I guess I'd better mention some of my other classes because I took a little grief over showing favoritism toward my 3rd period class. 1st period--ya'll are really quiet. Probably my best behaved class. 3rd period--really different--enuf said. 6th period--major problems. Maybe it's just because it's after lunch. I think most of them should be medicated. So did everyone miss me yesterday? I didn't get any nasty little notes sho ya'll must have been pretty good. While ya'll got to have a fun day at school, I had to listen to presenters at my workshop ramble on and on about things like Centrix servers, Linux RedHat, MIMEDefang, SpamAssassin, etc. Believe me, it was even more boring than it sounds. I'm looking forward to going to our girls' game tonight. Hope ya'll win!!!!!!!

10:19am: Random Thoughts
Today I learned how to create a live journal from my 3rd period class. They really love me and think I am the coolest teacher at my school. I secretly believe that they only think that is because I let them get on the Internet. I pretend to believe that they like me just for me, even though I really know the truth. Even though Landon and Elizabeth SAY I'm not the #1 coolest teacher, I know how they really feel inside.

I think that I will use this journal just to write about my 3rd period class and the wild and wacky things that happen. For example, today they did a worksheet. Isn't that really wild? They really love these worksheets.

Another thing that happened was that Nicole said that she had fun talking to me last night. Wow, who knew that students thought I was hard to talk to! I guess I don't show them my "fun" side. I probably should loosen up a little and show them how much fun I can really be!

Well, that's all I have for now. If else anything fun happens, I'll get back to this journal for an update.