Joining the morning chatter, because I just have to blow off steam, even though I really should be getting ready for work, because I need to leave in about ten minutes and am not yet dressed.

I am very sleepy. I know that for most of you, this is a normal hour, but for me, this is 0 dark hundred. Except not dark. Because summer. Actually, I'd be tired anyway, because I got about three hours of sleep last nice. Because I stayed up to try for Serenity tickets in Seattle, which all disappeared in about five minutes (or less), somewhere between when I started buying two tickets and when I finished registering. I kept trying (isn't a definition of insanity something like repeating the same action under the same circumstances and expecting different results?). I got up twice later in the night (morning), in case it was really some weird technological snafu. I am so depressed, and feel kind of craxy for taking this so very seriously. This was my only shot, as I don't actually live anywhere remotely close to where they have had previews or might realistically have them again.

I definitely believe in the value of teaching any concept in as many different modalities as possible. Shoot, I've never taught in a classroom, but the little bit of supervisory work I have done (on a cleaning crew back when I was in college) showed me the value of it. If a custodian can get it, you'd think teachers could, too.

Oh, god. When I interviewed with the school director, she told me that people in social services don't know how to use computers. I'm updating their computer manual right now, and there is actually a file called "Intro: Using the Computer," which explains how to turn the computer on, log in, shutting down, accessing files, starting and saving a new document, printing, etc. People! What decade do you live in?!

you laugh, but I'd have been happy to have that for my previou boss so that I wouldn't have had to write it myself...

vw, that sounds like 90% of the people in my office. (The other 10% of us are fearless and will try anything on our computers, even if it seems foolhardy. "What? Load this program you downloaded from an unsecure Korean site? Sure!!!")

vw, let me preface this by saying that I'm not kidding. An Army recruiter called for you. He said you should go look at the Website, www.goarmy.com, and if anything there interested you you should give him a call. He left his number.

Oh, I know. It just...it shocks me. Even my grandparents know this stuff. I know we're a technological family and all, but...my goodness...

I think the point where I totally gave up on even pretending to pay attention to phonics was in third grade. The day before, I'd gotten into some argument with my teacher over something in math -- I think it was something like the teacher had said that you can't subtract a big number from a small number, and I said, "Yes you can. The answer's a negative number," and she told me that we wouldn't be learning that until fifth grade and to sit down and finish my worksheet. (Possibly in a nicer way than that, but that's how I heard it.) I went home all indignant and complained about the unfairness of this to my mother, and she pretty much sighed (she'd heard this same sort of stuff from me before) and gave me one of many lectures I got about how sometimes you have to just sit down and shut up and play the game by someone else's rules, and it's not fair but that's the way the world works, so deal with it.

Fine. Next day, phonics. We're learning about how, if you've got a verb with a short vowel sound in the last syllable, if you want to add an -er, then you double the final consonant. So "run" becomes "runner," "spin" becomes "spinner," etc. We have a worksheet on this. I'm fine with most of it, until the base word is "mix." I write "mixxer," and I know that doesn't look right. But then I remember that I'm supposed to be following the rules, so I leave it like that and hand it in. I get it back, and of course, "mixxer" is marked wrong, and I totally hit the roof. I think I went home crying and screaming about how unfair everything is, because I'm wrong whether I follow the rules or not, and pretty much refused to pay any attention to phonics for the rest of the year.

Thankfully, the next year, our spelling lessons switched over to the kind where we have a list of words for each week, and by the end of the week have to know how to spell those words and use them in a sentence. That worked out so much more easily for me.

Emily, bwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Did you tell him that you know me well enough to know that I won't bother?

Nope. But I figure since he said, "If she's interested in anything there," he won't be waiting by the phone for you to call.