Pet Peeves

So Sam has figured out how to push our buttons when it comes to 8th grade.  He knows it drives me nuts when they come home with scrapbooking assignments. All I can remember doing in 8th grade was writing Compare and Contrast essays. Neither of them knows what 'compare and contrast' means. For the record, they have not done any coloring or pasting this year. I've done it all.

In this instance, we w"ere discussing the Periodic Table.
John, "You did the kids' homework?"
Me, "No. I colored."
John, "But that was their homework."
Me, "They're 14. Coloring is not homework."
John, "But the coloring helps you learn it."
Me, "I suppose that would be true if you were required to actually read the table. Which you're not. All you have to do was make it look like the picture in the book."
John, "But the homework helps teach these concepts."
Me, "Well, it doesn't"
John, <to Sam> "What's the atomic number of Helium" (he said some element, I don't remember which one exactly)
Sam, "uuuuhhhh"
Me, "Ask me!"
John, <to Tom> "What's the atomic number of Helium"
Me, "Ask me!"
Tom, "3?"
Me, "Ask me!"
John, "Fine. "What's the atomic number of Helium"
Me, "No idea. Colored the entire table and I haven't a clue."
John, <to Sam> "Which elements are turquoise?"
Sam, "Is that green?"
I rest my case.

A few weeks ago, I reached a entirely new level of piss-off-edness.  They came home with a hard bound book, about 10x12, filled with blank pages to which they were to attach various writing assignments they had done over the year and then decorate the pages.  A scrapbook.  They were making an actual fucking scrapbook. Sam's grading sheet showed 40 pts for "presentation". I asked if he was going to present it to the class.  He answered, "No, presentation is how it looks." Jesus Christ, 40 pts for how pretty the scrapbook looks.  So I made two scrapbooks and they're fucking gorgeous.

John's big pet peeve is how often they watch video's in Tech Class.  And not just on blow-off days like the Friday before spring break when the kids are useless and the teachers are getting caught up on grading and no one cares because I was the same way the day before vacation when I'd gotten everything ready and lined up for the time I'd be gone so my desk was clean and I was kinda just annoying everyone else until the boss says, "why don't you just leave already?", but they're watching videos on all kinds of random days. And they don't even watch educational videos. It's Tech Class, at least watch Apollo 13 or something. Sam spent a week singing a song from fucking Mulan.

So one night at dinner, Sam had had a stellar day and couldn't wait to tell us about it.
He looked up at me, smirking and said, "Know what we did in core class today?"
Me, "Please, no"
Sam, "We made a poster. We had to write Brent (or some name) in bubble letters and decorate it."
Me, "Tell me you're joking." <to john> "Tell me he's joking." <to sam> "She did not use the words 'bubble letters'"
Sam, "Yeah, she did."
Me, "And everyone knew what she meant? I have a real problem with the fact that every one of the 14 year old boys in that class knew what she meant."
Sam, "We have to paste an essay on the back."
Me, "Why can't you just do the damn essay. Are you graded on the poster?"
Sam, "Yes."
Me, "Jesus Ch....."
Sam, <still smirking, turns to John> "Guess what we did in Tech class today?"
John, <drops fork and knife> "Jesus christ"
Sam, "Well, we hadn't finished the end of Galaxy Quest."

Frankly, I'd like to be called into the office to discuss this.  Then I could explain that while Sam came home really proud of the work he'd done on his poster, and it was beautiful, don't get me wrong but he'd spent two entire periods of core class making lovely letters spelling out "Brent" and the 'e' was really hard, and sure he did a nice job but I am just a little bit pissed off inside because apparently this was considered 'time well spent' because at no time did the teacher come over and ask, "Why the hell are you still working on this? Write some sentences or something, for god's sake." And YES, Yes! I did make a conscious decision to let the boys play video games while I made the scrape books because I used to know people who were beta testers for Nintendo.  They were paid to play video games all day and this was in the 90's when if you played the games for extended hours, you'd get seasick so they also had couches in the office so they could lay down when they were dizzy and they still got paid and sure there are only a handful of beta testers in the country but now there are also a handful of professional video game players and you know how many people are paid to scrape book?
ZERO!

(And don't tell me that doing school work in new and different ways helps to reinforce concepts because they've been coloring and pasting since preschool so that's 11 years of coloring and cutting and pasting. This is not new.)

If I ever decide to home school, it wouldn't be for religious or philosophical reasons.  It'll be because I'm sick of glue sticks.

Standardized Testing - when good concepts go bad

Short version: I am so over standardized testing.

Long version:  I learned this school year that you are not required to take standardized tests.  There is a federal law that allows students to opt out.  The only drawback is that they don't tell you this but I will send you the information and form letter if you'd like.  This year we opted out.  And that should have been the end of things but it wasn't because the boys came home a few weeks ago and said, "Mrs. English Core Teacher* said that we needed to make sure we did really good on the test because it would determine our placement next year (in high school)"
Me, "What?"
Kid, "Yeah, if we do really bad we'll be put in the low class."
Me, "There isn't a low class."
Kid, 'Yeah there is."
Huh, that doesn't sound right because I sat through two high school orientations and have four packets of information (one for each kid from each meeting) and they all clearly state that all incoming freshman will be registered for the same english class unless they pass the Advanced Placement test that was given early in the month.  This information was also communicated to us out loud at each meeting. So I sent an email to the HS counselor asking if this was the case.  She responded:

"All of the students take English 9 unless they take a test to get into
Advanced English 9.  However, if a student scores low on the CAASP** they
may be recommended to take an reading intervention class along with their
English 9."

And this is where I get mad.  They've already done an exceptional job of stressing out my kids. I threw in the towel around Christmastime. "Yes, you win. I admit it. You are far better at stressing out my kid than I am at calming them down.  I could say it's because you've had more practice at 'preparing 8th graders for high school' but I won't. I will simply admit defeat and leave the ring."  Sure the gist of what was said is true but it was said in a way that implies something completely not true.  And the kids walk away with the gist and aren't so good at rummaging around for the facts so my kids come home thinking, "oh my god, this is really important and will effect my future." No, it won't.  All it can effect is the school's performance rating and having two less stressed out kids taking the test is actually in their benefit so it's surprising that they don't encourage more students to opt out which is probably what happened at some point so that's why they're not allowed to tell people about the opt out option because it was being used to artificially inflate test scores and now we're right back where we started.  But I'm tired of telling them this over and over so I finally said, "okay, that's enough, out of the pool, we're going home."

So this morning it came up again.  "Ms. Math Teacher said our test scores would be used to determine placement next year."  <fuuuck> but then he shrugged it off and walked out of the kitchen saying, "whatever, I've had a lot of time in the library to work on homework.  I wish every week was like this." HA- I WIN!

* This teacher's personal philosophy is, "You can always do better" which is not true.  Sure you can always spend more time on something but that doesn't mean you're making it better.  Da Vinci could have spent another hour on the Mona Lisa but he didn't and it's still hanging in the fucking Louvre. Alternatively you can polish a turd as much as you want and it's still a turd.  Furthermore this philosophy lacks any cost/benefit analysis. Is my time better spent doing homework for another hour or going to bed because nothing cures your ails like a good nights sleep.  And whiskey.

**CAASP is the new test. STAR is the old test. And there's SAT, and ACT.  The next one needs to be WTF or BS.  Someone is in charge of this, what the hell is going on up there?  The single best thing I did at PTA president during 5th grade was to change the copy machine code to 58008 because upside down it's BOOBS. Being an adult sucks; you gotta grab these chances when they come up.

Fear for the Fearers

Tom and I finally got around to watching the first new episode of "Fear the Walking Dead".

I spend the first 40 minutes saying,
Me, "Why are they keeping the dead body?"
Me, "They still have the dead body!"
Me, "Oh my god, get rid of the dead body!"
Tom, "It's his mom."
Me, "It's a dead body.  We don't keep dead bodies. Why would they keep dead bodies?!?"
Tom, "They shot her in the head; she's not going to come back."
Me, "She's gonna rot. Like she doesn't already have bugs inside her."
<later>
Tom,"Wouldn't she start to smell by now?"
Me, "YES! For the love of god, get rid of the dead body!!!"

Then I spend the last 20 minutes saying,
Me, "Get out of the WATER!!"
Me, "Sure, you got your asses kicked on solid ground, let's try things out in the water. What could go wrong there?"
Me, "Not only have they never seen a zombie movie, they've never seen 'Jaws'! GET. OUT. OF. THE. WATER."
Me, "Oh, great, now another one's in the water."

And through the entire episode I kept thinking,
"None of these people are drinking enough."
"It's the zombie apocalypse. I definitely want to be sober through that."
Everyone's on deck, "oh look, Charlie's in the water too."
I'd be below, "What, no ice??"

Emerald City ComCon - Day 3

So a month or so ago, John got me a surprise and he decided to tell me early to cheer me up.

John, "So I have a surprise for you!"
Me, "Uh huh. what?"
John, "I think you're really going to like this!!"
Me, "uhhhh"
John, "I got you an autograph session with Nathan Fillion!"
Me, "uuuuuuuuuhhhhhh"
John, "You'll get to meet him!"
Me, "uuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh"
John, "You can talk to him!"
Me, "Talk to him? I can't talk to him! I can barely talk to the people I know! Are you new?!?"
John, "You can get his autograph!"
Me, "What's he going to autograph? Do I need to get an autograph book? What do I do with an autograph? Do I have to hang it in the living room like those crazy Bon Jovi fans in Arizona? Oh my god, I don't have anything to wear? What am I going to wear? I need a new lipstick....."
John, "Surprise!"

A few days later:
John, "Um, what did you order from Garnet Hill?"
Me, "I need something to wear to meet Nathan Fillion."
John, "So you ordered everything?"
Me, "I ordered a bunch of stuff and I'll return what I don't want or doesn't fit."
John, "Um, could you return them immediately?"

A few more days later:
I've always wanted one of these cute pillows that I found on Etsy. The seller makes them to look like pop culture figures and the firefly ones are super cute.  I figured I'd get the Malcolm Reynolds one and have Nathan Fillion sign it. Phew, that's settled.

Me, "Look what I got!"
John, "Cool! You should have him sign that!"
really? great idea.

And even more days later:
John, "Did I email the confirmation to you?"
Me, "No."
John, "I can't find it. hhmmm. I'll keep looking."
Me, "You mean I don't have an autograph session? I finally got my head around it. And I got a pillow."
John, "No, I booked it. I just need to find the confirmation."
<days go by>
John, "So I found the email confirmation."
Me, "Oh, good."
John, "Well, it's not an autograph session. It's a photo-op"
Me, "WHAT?!?!?"
see the only thing I like better than talking to people I don't know, is having my picture taken.
Me, "WHAT!?!?!?!"
Me, "Wh....What do I do with my pillow?"
John, "Take it with you, he can sign it after the picture is taken. You can explain the mix up to him. It'll be funny......Oh wait, I just found the 'official rules'.  No autographs will be given during the photo op.  You have to get in the autograph line for that."
Me, "So I have to do this shit twice?"
John, "Oh, wait, you can't talk to him either."
<this is when we start laughing at the absurdity>
John, "If you want to have a conversation with the celebrity, you have to do that in the autograph line. You may briefly greet the celebrity."
<he keeps reading>
John, "Don't bring the celebrity any gifts."
Me, "See I don't get that. This guys is worth 15 million dollars. He should be giving me gifts."
John, "You could ask about that but you're not allowed to talk to him."
John, "Pretty sure, you can't make direct eye contact either."
John, "Oh, you can bring up to four people with you."
Me, "So that can laugh at you?"
John, "Hell yeah! I'm totally going!"
Me, "Well, at least the boys won't want to."
<From the other room>, "Yes, we do!"
fuck

Couple weeks before the big day:
John, "What are you doing?"
Me, "Whitening my teeth."
John, "Are you whitening your teeth for Nathan Fillion?!"
Me, "This is all your fault, you know"

One week before:
John, "What are you doing today?"
Me, "Getting my legs waxed."
John, "Jesus, this is costing me a fortune."

Day of:
John and I are standing in line, waiting our turn.  There are waaaay more people in line than I expected so we're doing the gorilla math. 300 people in this session, 4 sessions, plus the autograph lines, say he gets half of the proceeds, jeez this guy is cleaning up here.
We finally get to the front of the line and there's a big sign that reads, "No Props"
Me, "No props? No props? But...what about my pillow? John, I can't take my pillow."
John, "That's okay, I'll hold it for you."
Me, "No, it's not okay. It's a Firefly pillow. He's going to think I'm a fan of Castle cause I'm an old woman but I'm not a fan of Castle I'm a Firefly fan I mean Castles is okay I guess but Firefly is awesome and I don't even watch Castle and Slither I love Slither"
Now we're next in line.
Line girl, "No props, sorry."
Me, "It's a therapy pillow."
Line girl, staring at me and trying to figure out if that is a real thing or not, "uhhhh"
John finally puts her out of her misery and takes the pillow from me.

And I'm up.
Me, "hi"
Nathan, (we're on a first name basis now) "Hi. Come on over here" and he gets me tucked up under his arm all nicely 'cause I'm far more special than the others.

And:

John, "Soooo?"
Me, "I think it meant more to me than it did to him."
John, <laughs>
Me, "And the whole 'exchange of money' kinda cheapened it...."
John, "well at least we got an 8x10 glossy to remember it by.  Come on, let's get in line for the plastic protective sleeve...."

Rental Condo vs. Hotel

For the Emerald City Comic Con, we decided to rent a condo (right next to the convention center) rather than stay in a hotel.  Originally we had a hotel booked but when family members decided to come up we found a condo.  That fell through too close to D-Day to be changed but it's working out well.  My sister asked which we preferred 'a hotel or a condo' and it's hard to say. They both have their pros and cons.  The biggest cons of staying in a condo are:

1.  When you run out of toilet paper at 10:00 pm and you can't find any more anywhere even after checking the linen closet four times just in case you or someone else missed it the other times, rather than calling down to the front desk, you have to explain to your teenage boys that they CAN NOT use entire sheets of paper towel because they will clog the toilet and you haven't found a plunger either and I am VERY SERIOUS about this so act like you're listening to me!!

2.  When you are staying in an old building with centralized steam heat that does not switch from winter-mode to summer-mode for another two week so the heat comes radiating out beyond your control  and you know when it's going to start up because it is preceded by 5 minutes of regulated knocking noises as the <some mechanical device> primes and this starts at 5 am in the morning, and you're in Seattle during the only week of the year that it is 80 degrees; in a hotel you can call down to the front desk and they'll send up someone who will act like he's fixing the problem and will listen to you in a very concerned manner as you explain to him that you are very very hot and the whole process will make you feel better.  In a condo, your husband will explain the intricacies of the heating system, open a window and walk away. Even though you're still really really HOT.

The very best part of renting a condo is:

Sitting in the kitchen, having coffee and listening to a fellow resident trying to get his wife's little yap dog (and it was definitely his wife's) across the back lot into the pet area and he's talking to it in a little sing-song voice, "Come on, Princess, come on, no, no, over here, come on, come on you fucking little bitch....."  It just makes your entire day.

Emerald City Comic Con - Day 1

This day was spent in the following activities:
10% watching CosPlayers
10% looking for toys
80% trying to find each other

text string from my friend Tina:

This is Tina's son trying to find his friends. They spent a good 10 minutes on the phone with each other.  I swear to god this actually happened and Tina will vouch for me after she stops laughing.

"I'm leaning against a white pillar!"

"No, I"M leaning against a white pillar"

You gotta be kidding me...

On a lark, I entered an online contest to win tickets to the season 2 Premiere of Outlander In Glasgow. The location didn't seem like much of a deterent because nobody wins these things anyway, right?

So this morning, April 4th, I receive this in my email:

Hi there,

You have won the Outlander Series 2 Fan Screening competition!

Please RSVP by replying to this email confirming you attendance on Tuesday 5th April.

You may bring one guest as part of your prize. If you are bringing a guest, please reply alongside your RSVP with their full name.

The invite is attached for your reference. Please print this out and bring photo I.D. with you when arriving. Your guest will also need to bring photo I.D.

The key details are:

Date: Tuesday 5th April

Doors Open: 6.15pm

Screening Starts: 7.30pm

Location: 24 Ashton Lane, Hillhead, Glasgow G12 8SJ

Have fun!

The Outlander Team

*This prize only includes the screening, not travel or accommodation

Really? I mean, REALLY??

What's the price of last minute airfare to Glasgow, you ask? 

$2377 but the bag is free!  Tempting.

John is out of the country. Still Tempting

Leave the boys alone. Still not seeing the drawbacks.

My gut-wrenching response:

You’re killing me, Sarah.  I thought I’d have a little more time to work out the travel.  Actually I didn’t think I’d win.  Unfortunately I can not attend without leaving the house immediately and leaving two teenagers to their own devices.  Believe me, I’m tempted.  I even waited to hear back from my husband, who is not at present on the same continent as me, to confirm, “There’s no fucking way you’re going to Glasgow!”  I’ll have a whiskey in honor of the Runner-Up and let her know that I hate her with all of my heart.

Thank you,

Jennifer Moore

Sarah was johnny-on-the-spot with:

Hi Jennifer,

This email has really made my day. I can only apologise that we are letting you know at such a late date. The competition closed at a very late date, which was no fault of our own unfortunately. Shame you couldn’t jump on a place immediately ;)

Hopefully we will have something in future you can attend!

Sorry again.

Thanks so much,

Sarah

 Oh, Sarah, my poor innocent Sarah:

I will hold you to that Sarah Gutierrez.  That’s right I know your last name.  This debt will be paid in full.  I will stalk you like Inigo Montoya until I have had satisfaction.

 <heavy, threatening breathing> 

<much like Jamie Fraser>

 <but more feminine> 

You have not heard the last of me.

Jennifer

<glaring>