Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

I wish I could simply direct people to this post whenever a situation arises that involves me getting excited about the fact that a new girl has entered my life. It's become (or has always been, but I've occasionally made the effort, nonetheless) extremely tedious to explain to someone that it has very little to do with any intention of dating said girl and a lot more to do with the fact that the overall quality of my life simply improves when they're around because girls are the only reason I have ever learned anything important about life, love, and eternity. Is that so hard to understand?

Nowadays, whenever someone asks "How's life?" and I say "Good," if they then follow that up with "Yeah? Tell me about it," I just shrug and say "I've just been enjoying myself, is all."

ZOMG STRESSED!!!!

I need to remind myself to stop commenting on facebook statuses that look like they might be conducive to hordes of other people commenting in kind. The numerous emails that facebook sends me, informing me that so-and-so has also commented on so-and-so's status always makes me regret having posted the comment in the first place when I could have written the exact same thing on my friend's wall.

"I heard a rumor yesterday that you will be leaving this Wednesday July 28th"

In a badminton club of like... 25 members? There was a rumor about my anticipated departure date? It's wrong, too! Why didn't someone just ask me?

Oh wonderful. My instructor has informed me that the language I use on my rubrics is too strong and that I'm not being very supportive to the students in Level 1. Let's consider:

1. Senior Social Science - some expectations of competency here...

2. Do you know how HARD it is to get a Level 1? You have to have done close to nothing! Maybe "You have not examined your discipline method from any viewpoint" is a little strong but honestly, if you had done even the slightest bit of examination, you'd be bumped up to a Level 2.

3. I use expressive language on my rubrics because students tend to read them when I do. But no no, if you prefer, I will go back to cutting and pasting the exact same phrase and substitute "limited," "some," "considerable," and "thorough," into their appropriate places. Because students will appreciate that much more. It'll certainly save me time from making thoughtful remarks on what each level represents.

For the last time people, unless specified, you are NOT ALLOWED TO BRING RANDOM PEOPLE TO AN EVENT OF WHICH YOU ARE NOT THE HOST. I have given this sort of behavior a title: the "Rhetorical Invitation." It goes something like this:

"Can I bring (insert random friend, unknown to the host)?"

No. You are not allowed to ask these questions. It is a social faux pas because your host cannot, in good conscience, refuse without sounding rude. If you are encouraged to bring friends, your host would have made this clear in the invitation in the form of the "guests are allowed to bring friends" option in the facebook event planner, or the "feel free to invite anyone I may have missed!" caveat in the event details. If there are extenuating circumstances, this is the correct procedure:

"Hey, I might not be able to make it/be a little late/have to leave a little early because I've got this friend that (insert whatever reason you can't put off seeing this person for 3 hours)"

Your host will say 1 of 2 things:

a. "Don't worry about it, it's not a big deal that you can't come/are late/leave early." This means your friend is NOT invited.

b. "Why don't you just bring your friend. The more the merrier." This means your friend IS invited and it's up to you if you want to bring said friend or leave early/late.

It's really not very complicated. You know what? Politeness can go to hell. If you aren't socially aware enough to realize that the "rhetorical invitation" is a social faux pas, I'm just going to say "Sorry, no, you can't bring so and so. Feel free to skip the event." Seriously. Haven't any of you studied postmodernism?!

Speaking of cliched, garbage lyrics...

"Against the grain should be a way of life
What's worth the price is always worth the fight
Every second counts 'cause there's no second try
So live like you're never living twice
Don't take the free ride in your own life"
-- Nickelback

So I was reading articles from MSN.ca. It's not the greatest source of information but it's my default homepage so what will you (I should change my homepage, I know). I rarely read anything worthwhile (again, should get around to that changing), but I did read something today that I thought was rather poignant.

"The art of [writing] lyrics is in taking something universal you want to say (e.g. "I love you") and creatively saying it so that it is fresh and new, yet touches on the original universality of the feeling."

Fact. And don't you forget it, Adam Young (and others!).

I'm confused here. They're shooting The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? Wasn't that film released a year ago? Pretty sure I saw it.

Ugh, you know you've been at a writing project for too long when you're working on the last few chapters and can't remember what you wrote in the first few.

"Many students have never worked in collaborative learning groups and may need practice in such skills as active and tolerant listening, helping one another in mastering content, giving and receiving constructive criticism, and managing disagreements."

Considering that you'll have been shoving all this "collaborative learning" stuff down their throats from grade school all the way up through high school, if my SENIOR social science kids still haven't mastered these skills, maybe it's time to rethink the effectiveness of this "proven" strategy...

The next person who refers to me as "John," in an email or on facebook, I am never speaking to ever again.

Are you illiterate? When you click on "Jon Wong's" profile, did you think to yourself, "He probably just forgot to include the H in his own name."?

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/4a87d48fdd/undercover-karaoke-with-jewel

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite."
-- Blake

"The Power Rangers' superhero personas are entirely concealed by their face wrapping helmets, ostensibly making their secret identities impossible to screw up ... unless they hung out together all the time, wore monochromatic outfits corresponding with their respective Ranger identity and openly practiced martial arts together in formation."

I feel the onset of a funk. It'll probably last for a week. I'm seeing Purple next Monday so hopefully, that will pull me out of said funk.

I would also like to report, for those of you who care, that aside from a slow start in May and the online course I'm currently taking, this has been one of the best summers ever, so far.

Getting your signature to an employer (2010 edition)
1. Sign document
2. Connect scanner to computer
3. Scan and save document
4. Access the internet
5. Sign into Board website and send the document as an attachment
6. Employer prints out document

Getting your signature to an employer (1990s edition)
1. Sign document
2. Put it into a fax machine
3. Dial number


Does anyone else feel like we're making things a lot harder on ourselves?

I was thinking about Blu-Ray and high definition television sets (as I am wont to do in my spare time) the other day and I can't help but think that we might have gone about the whole business the wrong way. My dad got himself a new television awhile ago and something occurred to me.

Why do we need high definition televisions? Because our screens are bigger. Ok, good. However, it is worth mentioning that our SCOPE OF VISION hasn't changed. Big screen televisions haven't really increased the amount of stuff we see - it's merely made everything bigger. So instead of looking at a 25 inch screen from about a distance of 5 feet, we are now looking at a 60 inch screen of the exact same thing from a distance of 10 feet. When we invented bigger screens, shouldn't the next logical step have been an increase in our field of vision rather than a simple magnification of what we already saw.

Think of this way. Here is your screen from the 90s:


Now here is the point I'm trying to make:

Am I missing something here? I appreciate the fact that a bigger picture lets more people watch the same thing (movie theaters work on this premise) but still...

Another reason why I hate education courses:

"Identify a minimum of three significant conclusions that you anticipate will appear once students actually engage in their activities"

That I anticipate will "appear"? What am I, a magician?

Girls: from the perspective of a guy, your scent gets into everything. Not a bad thing; I just thought I'd point this out in the event that you're not aware of it. Case in point, I was up in Barrie yesterday and opened a friend's badminton racquet case to take a glance at the racquet inside. As soon as I undid the zipper, I got hit in the face with a big cloud of girl.

See, this is interesting, I think. Because one could easily imagine and understand why a girl's sweater or towel would smell like her - you are, after all, merging with these items, usually after you've applied a scent of some sort. But I thought about this racquet scenario. The only part you come into contact with is the grip... and usually, you're waving the thing around so it get aired out pretty good. One would imagine that the inside of a racquet-carrying case would smell like leather, polyester, synthetic cat gut, and carbon graphite (at least, that's what the inside of MY racquet case smells like). But apparently, if you're a girl, your scent just... somehow permeates into everything you touch.