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sundries

sundries

A squirrel just tried to climb in our bedroom window. It was using its little paws to move the screen next to the AC and was shoving it's head in. The bars near the AC are TOTALLY BIG ENOUGH for a squirrel to get through!!!! I yelled at it, and it went off, and then I tightened the screen, BUT NOW I LIVE IN TERROR.

Nothing like getting up at fuck o'clock to get something done only to discover the stuff you were supposed to have been sent in order to do it isn't there. At least there was an explanation. I went back to bed for an hour and couldn't sleep, so I guess I'm starting my day.

I should, on some level be verklempt, what with that thing tonight. But if there was ever an appropriate event to do on 4 hours of sleep, it's this one. That said, it needs to stop raining right the fuck now, and I am not allowed to read any more film scholarship today.

I am actually quite zen about the entire matter, except for the degree to which I am SMOKING HOT in this dress (seriously, I'm not sure I've ever looked better in anything), and that means people will say things to me, some of which will be meant as compliments, and some of which will be sleazy and crappy and unpleasant and when I'm not grateful, will be even more unpleasant.

Also, I have random musings on perfection, airbrushed foundation (a subject which I have had to research at considerable length for ConSweet. I can recognize it a mile moff, but damn, it always looks good), and teeth, but it's super wacky, so just never you mind.

I have, finally, selected some of the shows I'm going to see for the New York Musical Theater Festival. Right now it's Above Hell's Kitchen, Fingers and Toes, and The History of War. Haven't decided on a fourth yet, but now I suck less! Always good to know what's on before going to an opening night party for a festival, you know?

Patty reports a number of things (and we had a video chat yesterday which was great), including that she and her housemates went to see some blues singer at a pub last night. What is it with Wales and the blues? Torchwood fen know why I laugh.

A teenager in Australia climbed on a whale for a ride and authorities are trying to ascertain the kid's identity because there's a big ass fine that comes with that. Gratuitous reference to Whale Rider (which the article mis-titles as The Whale Rider) throughout article is super annoying because New Zealand and Australia? Not the same country. Also, Maori culture? Not, presumably, what this stunt was about.

Buh WHUT? Owner of the Segway corporation has just died in an accident involving riding one of the gadgets off a cliff. Apparently he was using the new rugged terrain model to inspect his estate and rode off a cliff into a river and died.

Why are more students using tutors? The piece asks whether high school has become harder or if students trying to get ahead of the competition. As far as I can tell from the random sample of college students I'm exposed to through my various academic friends and my own awesomely weird education, high school really, really, REALLY hasn't become harder. This is an area, however, in which my opinion is useless, because I don't know what school being difficult for me or typical of the nation could possibly be like.

Private companies taking over libraries.

Yesterday in New York was the parade for American Muslim Day.

In the current politics of hate, how far is too far? At least we have limits on something? Ugh.

supergee points us to a list of words Google Instant blacklists. Also, excuse me while I chortle for having to link to 2600. My past is so back to haunt me today, isn't it? Anyway, NSFW language, at times completely hilarious, at other times aggravating and offensive from a variety of perspectives. But it was sort of my favorite read of the morning.

Why does this surprise me? Oh right, because I think people are logical and understand that adult sexuality, no matter how culturally frowned upon a particular set of choices about it may be, is distinct from predatory actions towards children: Woman who admitted to doing sex work several years ago reassigned from teaching children.

In India, an actor has been thrown out of his home and disowned by his family for playing a gay man on screen. I have no words. I feel cut to the bone for this man.

Cary Grant and Randolph Scott friendship examined.

Signs of the apocalypse: Bedbugs vs. Stinkbugs.

Blame @Paul_Cornell: Dalek vs. Roomba. It is a true fact that I could watch dumbass Roomba videos ALL DAY.

Boardwalk Empire: Well, it was better. Al Capone's still the most interesting thing the show has going and too many of the men look alike. But this episode used music a hell of a lot more and it worked so much better for that. 'm still undecided on if I'm going to stick with it.

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... that reference to Whale Rider is even more egregious than I'd expected. Horrible news story, horrible news story - blam!AlsoIwatchedthisforeignfilmNewZealandisbasicallyAustraliaright?Relevance!

(total lurker here but I feel duty bound to comment on this) I'm a New Zealander and this is not terribly surprising although I do have faith that most Americans realise that while Australia and NZ are close we are not the same - even if CNN doesn't.

I'm reminded of when I visited America in 2001 and had this conversation with a local

Local: Where are you from?
Me: New Zealand
Local: Oh did you go to the Olympics in Sydney
Me: Ummm no

I mean it's close right but it's still at least a 3 hour flight to get there.

Hello lurker!

You have a better opinion of my countrymen than I do and I hope you are right. We're sort of notorious with the geography thing.

I was trying to be nice but I have noticed a BIG difference in Americans who travel and those that don't.

Edited 2010-09-27 22:26 (UTC)

My mother's from Holland.

She would have me actually sit and the kitchen table with tracing paper and colored pencils and copy directly out of the Atlas for practice.

I may never have been "there" but I've certainly heard of it! (But Holland 7 times so far.)

Yes - I'm a New Zealander too, and that sort of attitude rankles in particular. Though I at least still get a giggle out of people saying, Oh, you're from New Zealand, do you know person X? Because stupid as that question is, I often as not at least know them in passing ...

The kid's not missing - they just don't know who he is. Keisha Castle-Hughes was actually born in Western Australia and was an Australian until 2001, so there is a verrrrrrrry tenous link there!

I'd say it's more competition than high school getting harder. Crap, even back when I was in prep school there were kids who had their own tutors because, god, forbid, you need to have the SAT scores AND the grades to get into Harvard because no other uni will do.

...and I though the Cary Grant/Randolph Scott thing had been already established?

Edited 2010-09-27 11:44 (UTC)

Segway news is not funny. Segway news is not funny. Segway.... aw hell, the poor guy but there's a little bwahahaha in that.....

Yeah, this one goes in the same "Damn, I shouldn't laugh, but..." file as Paul Stojanovich's death.

The competition to get into "first rate" (whatever that means) schools is getting harder. There are schools in Fairfax Co., Va. (where my in-laws live and where my husband attended school) where they have several Valedictorians because these kids have gotten all As in GP classes and everything else. When you have 15 kids who have the same GPAs in the same classes, how do you choose?

I don't think it would be as big a deal outside of major metropolitan areas where the only ones going to college are those whose parents can afford it or who can get scholarships. I doubt that Prince George, Va. (my home town in S.E. rural Virginia) has seen an explosion it tutoring.

The libraries being taken over by private companies makes me queasy. One thing this discussion doesn't touch on is the not so subtle sexism going on. Library staffs are overwhelmingly female. Wanting to get rid of library employees because they are overpaid union workers with bank breaking pensions equals wanting to get rid of women who are seen as doing nothing for the pittance we're paid.

The salaries that library staffs earn are pittance, especially in comparison to other jobs that require similar levels of education. Starting salaries for fresh out of library school students are often in the neighborhood of $35-$40K with a peak of maybe $80K (if you are very lucky; I would think most tap out around $65-$70K).

And that's if the library has opted to use actual librarians (people with a Masters degree in librarianship). There are a lot of places that have decided they don't need the expertise offered by a library degree because they can pay someone who doesn't have the education less and think that no one will ever notice.

And for the most part they are right. Most questions asked at a reference desk of a public library can be answered with a map and a time table but we also field all sorts of questions that really need specialized knowledge not currently available with an undergrad education.

where they have several Valedictorians because these kids have gotten all As in GP classes and everything else.

My two cents here is "grade inflation," not "school is harder."

I have always wondered if the multiple Valedictorians thing was for the kids, or for the parents of the kids. I imagine after several years of school administrators trying and failing to convince panicked parents that their kid's future is not Forever Ruined b/c they aren't the valedictorian, they just gave up and let the top dozen kids give a speech.

Stories like those make me so grateful to be born in the 1970s when folks weren't having as many kids. Folks were sprogging like crazy in the 1990s, and educational institutions apparently haven't caught on to the fact that it is impossible to pour a gallon into a shot glass.

Well, when I graduated HS (1990), every Valedictorian in Indiana got a small governor's scholarship, maybe a grand or so, but hey, that was almost half a year's tuition at ISU where I went.

Which only partly explains the organized campaign launched to prevent me from being Valedictorian with my 4.0, because I was graduating after 3 years and "hadn't taken as many hard classes" as the two seniors who were awarded the title.

I think helicopter parenting is heavily involved here, both in the valedictorians and in the grade inflation. I am a little surprised that, as a grad school teacher, I've never had a call from anyone's mom demanding to know why I graded their son/daughter's assignment so harshly, but only a little, because I am the child and sibling of public school teachers.

I see helicopter parenting at the college level too. I constantly hear stories from academic friends who have kids parents call them demanding that kids get a given grade because they are paying or trying. If we inflate grades, we're basically falsifying credentials or grading people on what they want to do vs. on what they can do. It's a big mess.

Yes, I've heard stories like that as well. I've not taught much undergrad but it doesn't surprise me - when I was doing alcohol education for students who'd been busted for violating school rules or state laws about drinking, I had more than a few parents who were shocked, shocked that the school would enforce consequences on *their* child (even when said child's partying habits were threatening the education said child was there to get.)

The "give me a grade because I'm paying" thing was really a shocker for me when I started my last job. I kept threatening to propose a program via Faculty Senate in which any student could write a check for the full cost of a Master's Degree, plus a $500 per professor bonus payable directly to each instructor they would have had, and we would just issue them an MA while skipping directly over the unpleasant learning and grading parts.

I eventually began saying to certain students "your tuition check entitles you to attempt the course, not to succeed at the course."

Good on you.

And the competition is to get into the very very very best colleges. Speaking of Virginia, students might head for tutoring to make sure they get into UVA or William and Mary, but I doubt those who plan to go to Longwood, Radford or Christopher Newport are.

Before you entirely renounce film scholarship for the day, the Edward Copeland blog (OK, not really whatcha call scholarship as such) has a nice 35th anniversary piece on the gender-bendingness of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Among other gems, it contains the line, "We don’t have enough hedonistic pansexuals as role models these days, and the world’s the poorer for it." Yoo-hoo, Jack.

Oh, wow.

Thank you for linking to that.

RHPS was a huge part of my later high school experience. My parents weren't comfortable with me "going out" and being out past midnight, but if I told them I was going to Rocky, I had free reign until three or four in the morning.

And of course, all the friends I made in the local cast, etc. It may be cheesy, and at this point, commodified freakery, but...it was a way to have the kind of social life I wanted in a way my parents could roll with.

This may be a post later. Hmm.

Oh, that's interesting! Makes me wonder if they knew what Rocky was about?

I came to it later in life, the long-running Kings Road stage version on my first trip to London and later the film in a little Latin Quarter cinema where it's still the 10pm show on weekends. Hedonistic pansexuality was a bit old hat by then.

A few years ago I went to a revival at a West End cinema where there was no audience participation, and found that the film fell rather flat without it. I still know all the words to "Time Warp," though.

*grin* My parents totally knew what it was about.

Long before I was born, they went to a midnight screening in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass. They were frisked, and my mother was muttered at for being, "Another 35-year-old hippie."

The problem my parents had with me being out at night was that they didn't know where I was. If I said I was at Rocky, they knew I was in a specific place, and there for a specific amount of time, plus another hour or so at a diner, then in a cab with my best friend back home.

They just didn't like the thought of me say, in transit or in a place they didn't know the safety of.

RE more students using tutors: As the mother of a now 24 year old daughter, I'd have to agree that it's not because high school is harder but most likely because of competition. The question is whether these students are making B's and C's (or equivalent grades) and in tutoring to make B's and A's or if they are making F's and D's and are in tutoring to make C's or better? I'm betting the answer is the former.

Odd you mention ninja squirrels. Someone else I'm following (Mercutio!Jay, My Hero) has had an ongoing saga regarding the squirrel wars going on in her front lawn.

Only 9 am and I've already had several weird bits of synchronicity in my reading list :)

On the tutoring stuff, I think it's more the increased competition to get into university -- which have been loading up their requirements while cutting back on the number of accepted students. I also wonder if (particularly public) education is falling short, so K-12 schools themselves are worse than they were decades ago. Even when I hit university, I was amazed at how many things I'd gotten taught in high school that so many of my peers hadn't. That can't have improved since, what with all the education defunding going on.

Roomba video is evil. Promptly passed on to several friends of mine. This is internet.

I have no words for the profound stupidity around both the actor's and the teacher's situations. *headdesk*

Edited 2010-09-27 18:11 (UTC)

A squirrel? Very scary!

The article on the teacher does not surprise me at all. But it still makes me deeply, deeply sad.

"Oh indeed," she says without irony...

With the use of tutors, I think it might also be a case that it is just easier for a student to grasp a subject when the instructor doesn't have to wrangle the disruptive motormouths and teach at the same time.

I took 2 AP courses as a senior, and while I was at first worried about the added course load, the realization that being in an AP class = being in a class with other people who WANTED to be in that class and wouldn't be acting like total pains in the ass cinched the deal for me. Developing my essay-fu was just an added bonus.

I wonder about how math used to be taught, and if it was taught in a more incomprehensible manner. I don't think so. I think that the kids who find the way math is taught confusing are just more willing to reach out and try to get help.

My husband used to live in an apartment where they had a squirrel problem. One day, he came home from class to see a squirrel sitting on his dining room table, eating a muffin. Eventually, they had to install netting on their balcony to keep the squirrels out.

At least the teacher was reassigned and not fired - I know, it still sucks, but it makes me sort of strangely hopeful to think that we're in a time where, while stigmatizing, a history of sex work isn't taken as license to make someone unemployed/homeless.

I love how the Roomba is totally out of the Dalek's line of fire the whole time.
Odd ineffectual withdrawal at the end.

I'm pretty freaked about this privatization of libraries thing. I can understand bringing consultants in or something to that effect when a library system is struggling and needs a revamp, but it seems counter-intuitive that a for-profit company is going to do things better and more cheaply than the public sector or a non-profit.

Re: tutoring, recommending it is the norm for us where I work (which is admittedly post-secondary), and we've got pretty good infrastructure for open sessions. I attribute some of this not to the difficulty of the material and more to class size/format. Chemistry too huge and lecture-y? Study sessions may be the only chance for some students to get direct assistance.

The grey (USian imported) squirrels used to do that at one of the halls I lived in when I was at uni in the 80s. I used to encourage it by putting peanuts on the outside windowsil. The hall was an old building with wisteria all over the walls and so, to the squirrels, it was a big tree with weird (human) birds in it. Squirrels (well, the red squirrels in my icon and the USian and UKian grey squirrels, anyway) are harmless and just like inquisitive larger hamsters. These were more scared of me than I was of them. The one in my icon, Solo, was captive-bred at the British Wildlife Centre and I was less than a metre away from her when I took this photo. I get that some people might see them as vermin but they are not the same as rats…

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