Mary Versus the Trumpeting Legions of Apathy

Okay, so for a rhetoric hoohaw, we're supposed to read this because the professor who wrote it will be coming by on Thursday. That's right: coming by. Face-to-face. If you didn't take the whole time to read this address to students, ah, that's too bad, but here's my summary of it: "Hey kids, I want you to know that education is the yo-diggity and learning should be on the sweet world wide web instead of in dopey ol' classrooms! Peace out!" That's reductive, I know, but the tone is roughly correct; the same tone that teachers used in high school when they reminded us that we should come to the activity because "there will be pizza!" In fact, we called this "the pizza effect." The pizza effect is that painful, trying-to-be-cool thing that teachers do when they assume that kids are some how cool. (We're not cool--we're mostly a little dorky.) Not that I disagree: yes, technology is a great boon for students. I felt weird w...

Okay, so it all started with my brother Dave's Christmas present. Rocking with him and my sister-in-law, we formed "Opportunity Cost," fronted by Livvy Danger, our cover-band with an exploding panda logo. Then the break ended all too soon and the gift had to be packed up and shipped. Then, the day I move back from break, what do I find, but my roommate, Laura, is a mega guitar-hero fan. This whole phenomenon cropped up while I was on my mission, and it kind of passed me by for almost a year, but now, now here I am. Yeah. I should be sleeping.

Having gotten 6 hours of sleep thanks to roommate shinanaginisms, I soon found myself in the shower thinking, "C'mon, keep telling yourself this is going to be a good day, this is going to be a good day." I woke up on time, I told myself. I also didn't forget my movie for my lesson plan somewhere. But then, I told myself, that's not a good day, that's just not bad day. Then I got out checked my email and found a bevy of good news! My mom found my little black journal with all my addresses and plans in it!! I got accepted to the RSA Workshop!! My paper got accepted the LTUE conference!! My mentor isn't coming to class to observe me today, so I can watch the inauguration with my students!! Ten minutes later and already, yeah, it's a good day.

So I just finished watching the Russian film Stalker. (By the way, this clip does not do the movie justice--it's three hours long, long takes, not much happens, but every single frame I'm screaming "This is the best movie ever!!" in my head.) (Yes, with two exclamation points.) The wife of the stalker (meaning, like, guide or hunter, not creepy following guy) has this great Eve-esque monologue to the camera where she describes how hard it is to be married to a guy who sneaks people into a terribly dangerous illegal Zone so that they can make wishes in an abandoned room (I'm telling you, this is a really awesome movie), but how she never regretted it because if things weren't miserable, she wouldn't know happiness, and, more importantly, she wouldn't know hope. In general, the movie makes the argument that happiness is hope, however ephemeral. So what is happiness, anyway? This isn't the first time this week I've pondered that. In the econ cla...

A new theory of dinosaur extinction focuses mainly on poor Super Mario World playing in the late Triassic period.

1. De-evolved into a monkey. 2. Temporarily assimilated by the Borg 3. Lived an entire alternative life in 20 minutes (and learned to play the flute therein). 4. Was Robin Hood. 5. Was present when life on earth began (thank you, Q). 6. Learned how to communicate with an alien by talking entirely in metaphor. 7. Shared minds with ex-girlfriend. 8. Shared minds with Vulcan ambassador. 9. Encountered alternate universe version of self. 10. Had no son, then he had a son, then no son again. What a stud!