Sunday, February 26, 2006

post the fifty-fourth

I was at my aunt's today with Petra (who, blessedly, had the social sense not to pick a fight with my uncle, which would have been really easy), when the subject of education classes came up.

Before I continue, I'm going to refer those of you who aren't regular readers of my blog to peruse some of my older posts for my thoughts and feelings on education classes. If you're not going to bother going back and reading my earlier posts (you lazy sack of chum), you can be content with knowing that I disapprove of them. Strongly.

Anyhow, my aunt is also a teacher. She asked me how school was going, and I mentioned that there's this one class that I'm really disliking. She realized it was an education class and immediately sympathized with me. She remembered her own days of studying educational theory and described them as "asinine." Few things could have made me happier than hearing that word used to describe the bane of my existence. My sister was there as well and seemed confused as to why we should hate education classes so much. She's an English teaching major, but she's only taken one class so far, and that's been a class in which she only observes other teachers in their classrooms (and thus is extremely useful). Next week, though, she starts another non-observation based class, which I think she's really going to hate. The poor thing.

The moral of the story is that I was really happy that someone else - especially someone with direct experience in teaching - agreed with me that education classes are, in fact, a ridiculous waste of my time. I'm still planning on going into the field, mind you, but I still think it's ridiculous that I should be subjected to these classes that are completely asinine.

I may rant more on these later. We'll see.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

post the fifty-third

I seem to be remarkably gifted at making a poor first impression. I'm not entirely certain why that is, though. I used to be very charming when I first met people, and now I'm not anymore. It might have something to do with my personality. I'm quite a sarcastic person by nature, so sometimes I manage to rub people the wrong way at first. Once I realize that I'm doing that, though, I try to make up for it and end up overcompensating.

It's certainly not like I do it on purpose, though. Who would go out of their way to be awkward? (answer: certainly not me) Once you get to know me and understand all of my quirks and idiosyncracies, I can actually be very charming. There's just something about that intial encounter that weirds people out. It's a wonder I manage to make any sort of friendships last at all.

I further wonder if other people feel like this, or if it's just weird and quirky me. I promise this isn't a rant about my lack of self-esteem (there's plenty, don't worry), but just something I've been wondering about lately.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

post the fifty-second

Have you ever posted on your blog (or, if you haven't a blog, seen someone else post on theirs) simply because they hadn't posted for a while and thought it was about time to post something, even if what they post doesn't have any real value to it?

Rest assured I haven't forgotten about you all. I just haven't anything worthwhile to post about today, other than the fact that I ate some really good bread today.

Mmm.....bread.





Thursday, February 16, 2006

post the fifty-first

As promised, today I discuss the issue of the word "boy."

Boy carries a certain connotation that the words guy and man do not. I don't really mind being called a guy; as a 23 year old male, I feel like that might be the most appropriate description of me. Man seems to imply a sense of grown-up-ness. Men are the ones running the government, businesses (for the most part; Steve Jobs, for instance, is definitely a guy), and other important aspects of society. I'm pretty sure that I'm not a man just yet, or, at least, I'm not one very often. I rather prefer being a guy, in which state I can be irresponsible from time to time. Being a guy just feels cooler than being a man.

But a boy...

The term boy, to me, at least, seems almost condescending. There really isn't a female counterpart to it that I'm aware of. Seven, seveteen, and twenty-seven year old females can all safely be called girls. There aren't any subtle nuances that are carried with that term. However, boy does carry some implications with it. I feel like calling a male a boy implies that he is still emotionally immature. This feels especially so when young women talk about boys that they're interested in. It feels as though they are (subconsciously, perhaps) setting themselves above these males. I, for my part, feel slighted when I'm referred to as a boy. I really don't like it. I'd much prefer to be called a guy, or perhaps even a young man. I wouldn't mind being called a man, terribly, but it makes me feel more grown-up and responsible, which feelings I'm not sure I'm ready to take on just now.

Maybe some others of you have felt like this before. Maybe you haven't. In either case, I'm very tired from having taken Petra to the airport this morning for a flight which, to my knowledge, left the airport after sitting at the gate and on the runway for over four hours. Good thing I got up at 4:30. When I get really tired like this, I get increasingly philosophical, and I think it's coming out in this post. Maybe I should go take a nap.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

post the fiftieth

As it turns out, I'm quite a bit different from other people.

This isn't such a bad thing, in my opinion. Allow me to explain.

I was standing around after church today, waiting to be interviewed by my bishop. I assume most readers of this blog are either BYU students or familiar with how BYU operates (as most of you are either friends of mine or found this blog through the 100 Hour Board), but for those of you who are unaware as to such matters, each year every BYU student has to receive an ecclesiastical endorsement to prove that he or she is still following the BYU Honor Code. It's an exciting yearly tradition that generally takes me all of two minutes. My interviews usually go something like this:

BISHOP: Have you read the Honor Code?
OPTIMISTIC: Not recently, but I know what's in it.
BISHOP: Are you following it?
OPTIMISTIC: Yes.
BISHOP: Are you sure?
OPTIMISTIC: Yes.
BISHOP: Okay. Do you have any questions for me?
OPTIMISTIC: No, not particularly.
BISHOP: Okay. Thanks for coming.
OPTIMISTIC: Not a problem.

This is how most of my conversations with my bishop go, actually. He's an excellent man, it's just that we usually don't have very much to talk about.

At any rate, I figured it would be a while before I got in to my interview, as my bishop likes to talk an awful lot. There's just very little to talk about with me, so our interviews usually go very fast. As it turned out, I waited in the hall for close to forty minutes before I actually had my interview. In that time, he interviewed two people. I had the pleasure of waiting in the hall with a pair of glitter girls during that time. Predictably, they chatted merrily away about boys (more on my hatred for this particular term later) in their lives, strange places that they'd left objects in the past, and about bagels and which sorts they liked best. (I'm not even kidding about that last one.) I compared their conversation to the book that I was reading - Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - and realized just how different we really were. At several points during these girls' conversation, they looked over at me with a quizzical look, as if to say, "What on earth are you doing reading a book? Especially a book as weird as that?"

I am different than a lot of people. I enjoy reading this particular book. I like discussing historical theory with those who can appreciate it. I feel and act more "intellectual" (as my roommate sneeringly describes it) around many of my friends. I rather enjoy it. I think I enjoy it most precisely because it makes me different from many other people. I've always enjoyed defining myself as something "different." If all that does is free me from having to talk about boys and bagels, then I'm okay with that.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

post the forty-ninth


I'm sitting at my kitchen table with my computer open so I can listen to music while I read my adolescent development textbook and write a short synopsis of it. It's bright outside, so I have sunglasses on so I don't get blinded. I also have a very large pot of curry sitting on my stove, which I just shared with two of my roommates and Uffish Thought.

I'm pretty sure that the music and the curry make me awesome. I'm equally sure that the education textbook does not.

The jury's still out on the wearing sunglasses indoors bit.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

post the forty-eighth

Sometimes I find myself straining to think of something clever to post here. I suppose not everything has to be witty and clever. The fact is that recently, funny things just haven't been happening to me like they used to. Not so much with profound things, either. We can't all always be heroes, I suppose. Oh well.

That's not to say that things haven't been good recently, because they have been. This has been a good week. A good week. Definitely a better week than I would have envisioned it being from the standpoint of a week ago. (That made sense in my head, I promise.) It's just that it hasn't been the typically bizarre week that most of my life has been.

My roommate is talking with his dad on the phone about math, and he keeps messing up the word "matrix." The plural, of course, is "matrices," and so he keeps backwards-extrapolating it to "matrice," and it's starting to bother me. Also, it bothers me that I can't remember the proper term for what I'm doing, but I assume Petra will correct me about it soon enough.