Thursday, April 23, 2009

what would cookie do?

Never thought about how he'd react.


As seen on thenextweb.

Monday, April 20, 2009

as always, state standards apply

The better narrator: cat...or roomba?



And to think, I used to develop my own writing prompts.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

updates have their place

This is what immediate guilt on Facebook looks like. For maximum enjoyment, read from bottom to top.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

fringe faculty

What I think I know (as told by those students):

They're just a phase. In fact, if I hold my breath long enough, by the time I'm ready to exhale, they'll be gone. Over the course of any given school day, they're just a blip on the radar; visible for a second and then gone.
Don't tell me to create. How about you create something? Instead, you're dumping your own lack of preparation on me and every other student in this classroom. I show up, I do my job. That's what it's been about. That's what it's all about. Honestly, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish.
They're just a fad. Campy little things. Even the other teachers think they're ephemeral. So I'm not about to invest any seriousness in their courses when I know that their colleagues think their instructional methods are of no greater interest than circus menagerie.
Don't tell me to interpret. That's your job. I read. I turn pages and stop at the assigned destination. I show up. You tell me what it was about. Ask a question, I'll silence the answer right out of you. You can't handle wait time. I know that, and so do you. You only have 87 minutes. 90 days. You can't wait. So just give me meaning. Give me the vomit and I'll regurgitate it on the quiz.
They're trying too hard. Ning here. RSS there. Wiki, wiki, wiki, and what have you got? Pretty, password protected accessories. Ning will go away. RSS will pass. And no matter what, in another year I'll be out of here. So keep your Nings. Create a new wiki. I've been there. I've done that. I'm done.
Don't tell me. Anything. I show up. I do my job. This institution celebrates 'B Giveaway Day' every day of every year, and I've got a transcript chock full of B-infested evidence. My written work is inferior. My interpretations are literally literal. And my 3.0 GPA does little to inspire me to change. I'm the majority. And you, teacher, asking open-ended questions, assigning projects high-up Mr. Bloom's taxonomy, you're the minority. Ask any other teacher.
What I think I know I think is true.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

relationships, tricky

Okay, so in the two years I've been on Twitter, I've experienced more relationship fluctuation (read: 'followers' and 'qwitters') than the whole course of my Twitterless life.

Normally, the loss of a friend is followed by some period of emotional mourning:
Why? Please, let me make it up to you!
or an anger-infused binge of self-justification:
I'm better off without that pebble-chucking misanthrope anyhow!
But with Twitter, the celerity in which I've seen followers come and go leaves no time for reflection. And I have no desire to find out why people 'qwit', and even less need to mend any severed connections.

I guess that's the real power of Twitter.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

better than juicy

Need a poem for your pocket? Well, it's April, so you should have some latent iambic desire tugging at your poetic soul.


It's a lot better than some of the current word-inspired fashion choices: